


days of our lives (here it goes)

by circa (stealthturtle)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, WIP, days - freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8657881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stealthturtle/pseuds/circa
Summary: And as they walked under the stars and through the veil of city lights, chatter, and the pretense of being alone, he knew one of these days the boy would take him home.Or –Before, Jason is someone Nico only sees everyday but doesn’t really interact with, until a smile breaks their barriers.After, nothing is ever really the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an unfinished work of mine from 2 years ago I thought of putting up, just in case anyone would like to read it. I didn't have any plans on continuing it until recently, reviews are greatly appreciated (and sought out for). Tell me if you're interested in more chapters x
> 
> edit: non-con warning does not pertain to the Jason/Nico pairing, read at your own risk, skipping is an option!

days of our lives (here it goes)

 

_And as they walked under the stars and through the veil of city lights, chatter, and the pretense of being alone, he knew one of these days the boy would take him home._

Or –

Before, Jason is someone Nico only sees everyday but doesn’t really interact with, until a smile breaks their barriers.

After, nothing is ever really the same. 

 

_[and it goes like this]_

_i._

                Mondays are fresh, bright, and just a little bit sloppy. The start of trials and is duly dreaded, thoroughly cursed, and the struggle painstakingly overrated. The sun is up and mild to those who awaken in the morning’s hush and fog creeps from the undergrowth. He cracks one groggy eye open and light filters from the blinds as every ray felt like a stab in the iris. He gets up, gets ready, gets dressed, and gets going.

                The bus was late today, and so was he. The boy with blue eyes who always stands a few feet away from him as they both wait for the bus, wait for their lives to start. He’s a bit odd, but Nico wasn’t one to judge. (He’s quite the enigma himself.)

                They never talk, except for a few curt nods exchanged in the rarest of moments. And that’s all there was. And that’s all they ever were. (And ever will be.) Given thought, he hadn’t an inkling why he was pondering over such things too much. He was just especially sentimental on Monday mornings, maybe. Yes. Definitely. Couldn’t afford to think any further than that.

                _Scra-a-a-a-p!_ The sound of Velcro tears through the slight stillness of the 8 AM stop and Nico immediately knows it’s was him. They met six days a week and it was a nice kind of company without the initial awkwardness of debating whether to say a brief greeting or to just walk away. Often times it would seem like either one would think of something to say but they always drew back. (It was unnecessary.)

                The bus arrives and Nico notices that the boy is wearing a blue shirt that matches his eyes (which was equally as attractive as his face) and makes a point to not stare too long. But it’s too late, because for the first time since the inception of their barely-established acquaintance, the boy smiles. The boy smiles and it lights up his whole face like a celebratory mascot tree in December or how they lit up the whole street at exactly ten in the dead of night in their street, and it was just –

                Beautiful. It was beautiful.

                For a moment he has to carefully collect his sentiments before remembering how to put one foot in front of the other. Breathing steady. Hands fidgeting. His first period was going to start at nine, he can’t be late. The boy climbs up the aluminum stairs and leaves him standing there, heart beating a little too fast.

                Nico can’t help but to wonder what exactly this boy does every day, after every meet they have. He’s merely curious, and a little delirious. But that’s okay. It’s got to be okay, anyway. Does the boy attend uni? Or go to work perhaps? Should he say hi?

                The bus jolts to a start before he could really think about trivial things.

                Mondays are curious, lengthy, dragging days that were a constant reminder of the fact that it was four whole days more before the weekends. Twenty times they meet and nothing more gives. On the twenty-first, they break that succession.

                It’s rather nice.

 

_[and it goes like this]_

_ii._

Tuesdays are fearless, raw, and unadulterated exhaustion. They are line-after-line of exams, shitty coffee, messy blue pen ink, and afternoon shifts at Rosie’s Diner. Tuesdays are train wrecks filled with 3 AM essays, the ritualistic unpleasant dreams that wake him up, and ravens perched on trees, standing by and telling him to watch his back.

                He really couldn't tell anyone what it was he’d been thinking at times. Nothing that made sense either sensibly nor intuitively, that's for certain. They had this smile; this lazy smirk curled up at the corner of their mouth. Wendy might have called it a kiss, always just out of reach. He calls it an omen, ready to ram its way into your wellbeing and batter it to shards.

                He avoids looking their way whenever he mops the checker-board floors or rings the bell to pass an order. He ducks down from their line of vision every time he delivers a tray of fries and milkshake at table 8.  But their gaze trails his every move and it sent every hair on his body to rise each time they ‘accidentally’ brush hands in the locker rooms. The feeling of disgust and shame overwhelms him and fills his emotional bucket to the brim and _he can’t_ _breathe_. He bursts out of the diner with mismatched socks and items spilling out from his messenger bag, blinking away tears and wincing at phantom pains that never ceased until it is already in the late depths of night and he is seemingly safe under the roof of his shoe-box apartment.

                That day he doesn’t reach it that easily, however.

                Tuesdays are nighttime bus stops, seedy men lurking in alleyways, broken record players at the diner, cold air, and polished tables. He gets off from work at exactly eight o’ clock and walks home. With an insane stroke of something that was definitely _not_ luck, he sees the boy from every Monday sitting on a bench with a MedRite tarp behind the backrest, and he has half a mind to join him. The other half is telling him to run. But he doesn’t.

                Instead he sits down, trembling lips stretching into a pathetic excuse of a smile, but he doesn’t say anything. The boy smiles again (it reminds him of every Christmas he didn’t have the reason to spend) and they don’t speak, still. They let the sounds of the city talk instead.

The Virgin Exodus nightclub was alive and bursting with sex-starved individuals and casual drinkers running away from husbands and wives or responsibilities. They were blasting some 90’s rock music and it resonated throughout the whole area to the point of the two teens feeling the pounding bass rumbling through their frames.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for an indie-folk type of guy,” the boy suddenly goes, nodding his head to the dark-haired teen’s _Mumford and Sons_ band shirt, making the horrible beating _thing_ in Nico’s chest stutter and almost altogether skid to a stop. “More of AC/DC, but hey, you learn something new every day right?” His voice is low and smooth, and it went with the music that carried through the air and seeped into his marrows, and it’s nice. He has a playful lilt that set Nico’s earth at ease which is stupid because he can’t believe he’s _this_ affected, but then he’s looking at the boy’s blue eyes again and it’s getting progressively hard to be eloquent and yep – _yes_ , you discover something new every day, and he’s learned this one.

So Nico tries to chuckle, but it sounds strangled and altogether forced, so he stops because he doesn’t want the boy thinking that he said something wrong and instead says, “Don’t let the goth look fool you, although I swear to the gods I never once thought that scene phase would find its way into my wardrobe.”

Then the blond laughs, it’s a nice kind of laugh, the kind that sounds like hope. “Oh gods, scene phase was the _worst,”_ he says while stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Nico does his best to look mock-affronted and goes, “Scene phase is right now.” And apparently he said the Right thing because they boy’s eyes light up and he throws his head back in a hearty laugh, revealing a column of throat and a perfect set of teeth that led to lips and the small scar on the left corner of the top lip which he has the urge to ask about, but _hot damn_ could that smile cure cancer.

He then focuses that Smile on Nico, and his breath catches, and then the beautiful boy says, “I’m Jason.”

And there it was. Jason, who he met but never interacted with much for weeks until this very moment right now; Jason, who once gave his umbrella for Nico to take that one time when it was raining hard enough to knock trash bins into rolling around the streets; Jason, who surreptitiously paid for his bus fee when he forgot his wallet at home; _Jason_ , who unwittingly became a rare highlight of his day; night; afternoon; life.

Nico’s finally put a name to the once anonymous face and it feels like a small victory unlike any other. He feels like such a dork and probably has to punch a wall now to restore whatever dignity he still has left before turning into a bumbling, stuttering, schoolboy, and he is _not_ prepared for such a turn of events.

“Nico,” he supplies, trying for a pleasant smile but only managing a crooked grin. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

 

_[and it goes like this]_

_iii._

               

                Wednesdays are ill-fates awash with the type of woe that settles into your bones and burrows its way into your bloodstream. It is getting up late until 12 PM and energy drinks and prolonged lethargy combined with last-minute studying for economics, bio, and history. It is one big-ass reminder in the form of soil and flowers and cement dug deep into the crevices of his heart that he’s lost someone, and no, he’s never getting them back.

                She died in December on a Wednesday night while going back on the road after just coming home with that week’s groceries in hand. She had been out all day buying presents and a thin dusting of snow lined her silver parka.

Nico had only started making his way to light the fireplace when she suddenly gasped and told him that she’ll be back in a few and would be shopping for their Christmas supper, lest they’d spend it eating leftover mackerel casserole she had made/experimented with on one of her cooking binges.

                She put her boots back on, kissed him on the forehead, and whispered very quietly in his ear –  as if it was a well-kept secret, even though they were the only inhabitants of their small apartment their father had given and paid for after Maria’s death – “ _I also haven’t gotten you your second present.”_ before slamming the door shut and telling him that she loved him for the last time.

                Bianca always got him two presents, and sometimes Nico thinks that this was because she made up for their mother who never really was there. He’d been too young to remember who Maria di Angelo was, anyway, or how she died. Bianca says it was because of a storm, that she had gone out to deliver something on foot to their grandmother and was struck by lightning and never came back. Nico cried after hearing that and insisted on sleeping every night in his sister’s room who would sing to him in Italian until he fell asleep.

                Bianca made his breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She had dealt with all the bills and got a bunch of jobs to keep their lives running, even risking a few phone calls to Hades when they didn’t have enough to cover all the expenses. She was prideful like that, only asking for help when in dire need instead of relying on their father’s money: the only proof of him still existing and in turn aware of _their_ existence.

                She came to all his recitals and took pictures, she tutored him on Science and in life, and she made sure that there was no birthday of his left unspent. Bianca made him tea before bed, and she took him to the doctor regularly, nevermind her own health. She was there when he started showing signs of MDD and had a paper bag at the ready when he had his first anxiety attack.

                She made it so that he took his medication every day before going to school and put up with him even through one of his less favorable episodes, with him rocking back and forth on the ground of their small bathroom and her cradling his head in her lap muttering assurances and kissing his forehead ever so lightly.

                Because of this, every essay he ever did in secondary school was dedicated to her. She was his favourite person ever, and in primary school when the teachers had them talk about their parents and while all the other children would gush about their mothers and fathers in great detail, it all sounded very generic until the line came to a stop at him. Little Nico who had barely any knowledge of the world but was sure as any that _his_ mom was the _‘bestest and greatest’_ of moms out there. Because not only was she his mother, but his sister as well. The teachers probably knew about their situation (since Hades had his children’s education arranged – the only thing he could truly do after everything), but still they pressed on. They told him to imagine his mother, his _real_ one, they articulate. And Nico does, and he sees olive skin and dark hair always down in a side braid with irises plucked from the night’s sky, smiling down at him kindly and patting his head, and then kissing him good night after tucking him to bed.

                Now he stands over her grave, and he remembers the Christmas Eve that brought all this on and tore his whole world into shambles. The Call came a few hours after Bianca left their flat, and Nico was beginning to worry because she was taking a little too long. Still, he had to keep his anxiety in check, especially since his next doctor’s appointment was next week which meant he’d be getting his meds next week, too. Bianca was a legal adult driving a non-accident-prone car and he had nothing to worry about. He repeated this over and over in his head as he watched cartoons in their diminutive television.

                And then it happened. The phone rang, and he had dropped from the couch and crawled over to where it was. When he picked it up an authoritative voice greeted him. _“Is this the di Angelo residence?”_ He said yes and asked what this was about. _“Listen, kid, this is the NYPD, you got anyone older than you at the moment? Mom or dad at home?”_ He said no and deadpanned that they were both dead (or for the latter’s case, as good as). _“Well shit, okay son, you gotta come right over to the police station, yaknow where that is?”_ Nico nodded but then realized the police man couldn’t see him so he muttered a yes, panic building inside of him.

He can’t help but imagine the worst and the adrenaline was coursing through his veins, his ADHD firing up making him restless and giving him an urge to just hang up and run to the station. He felt like crying but he couldn’t, because Bianca needed him right now, he was sure of it. She might have gotten arrested or something while going over the speed limit or some shit like that. He could bail her out, no worries. So he told the policeman that he was on his way and hung up abruptly, and then rifled through the well-concealed cookie jar high up in the top most shelf of the kitchen for a wad of cash they keep in easy reach in case of emergencies.

He took his bike and pedaled off as fast as he could towards the station, anxiety clouding over his senses and making him feel buzzed and numb and distorting his better judgment. He almost ran over a pedestrian. Old lady or not, his sister _needed_ him, and he couldn’t let her down.

And then –

Then it happened.

When he got there he saw the apologetic expression on a policeman (who might have been the one he was talking to earlier), and the air was so thick with this kind of heavy tension as everyone stared at him like he was going to attack any minute now, and in that moment he _knew_. So he barreled his way into the front desk and started screaming about where was his sister, _where was Bianca?_ And then he’s crying because this isn’t real, it can’t be, it’s too painful and terrible and horrible and awful and it’s – it’s like his lungs are being crushed by the weight of the sky, the ache so bone-deep it shook him to the core. God damnit, _where was she?_ He can’t breathe, breathing isn’t a necessity when he’s inhaling nothing but the smell of freeze-dried coffee and rancid trash and hopelessness and tasting only the salt of his incessant tears.

“I’m so sorry kid, but she was driving too fast and this bastard of an eight-wheeler came from her side and had a faulty break,” the policeman said as he collapsed in a heap in the middle of the station, shoulders shaking violently. The man said something about the force of the hit immediately crushing the car (and her chest caving in; the man left that part out but Nico could figure it out just as well) so she hadn’t gone through any sort of pain, the man assured him.

But what about his pain? How do they expect him to _live_ with his?

As soon as he could breathe again, he stood shakily and stared at the policeman unblinkingly. “So what now? What’s next?” He asks and takes a shuddering breath. “I can’t do what she does – did – oh fuck it. I can’t do any of that, the taking care of the bills, the jobs, the cleaning. I have school and I can barely get myself to wake up in the morning – she does that for me. Fucking hell I sound so incompetent,” he laughs mirthlessly.

“Her clothes? What do I do with them? Drive to a cancer research charity store and just dump all of her belongings and go ‘Hey these are all the stuff my dead sister once had and I want you to put it to good use’? Is that it? Sorry, your sister’s dead, condolences. What about my school forms? No one to sign them now, is there. Is the next step foster care? ‘Cause I sure as shit am not staying with my dead-beat dad. Oh, did you tell him already? You probably don’t know who he is, though. Yeah, _because she was my whole fucking world._ She was my parent, my sister, my life, the only good thing in my whole damn sorry existence, and you’re telling me that on Christmas Eve, this pathetic excuse of a driver who didn’t bother to check the state of his car _took all of that away from me?!”_ Chest heaving, lungs burning, hands flailing everywhere. Everyone in the station had their eyes on him, and for a moment he felt the social anxiety hit him again, but the complete and utter ire and grief consumed him and he can’t process anything but the fact that Bianca was dead and is very much irretrievable and _this can’t be fucking real._

“Hey Biancs,” Nico whispers, smiling wistfully at the tombstone and the numerous bouquets of daisies with fallen petals littering the ground. “How’ve you been?” he asks, angling to sit down on the grass. “Life’s okay. Gods, how long has it been? Three years? You’re getting old,” he laughs lightly, smiling down at the small picture of a 19-year-old Bianca di Angelo beaming at the camera. It was taken by him when they spent a Sunday at a Venetian Film Festival, going on a roll after already watching four films. Three buckets of popcorn later, he pulled their DSLR camera out (a birthday gift from her) and snapped its very first picture.

“Uni’s been killing me, and that professor I told you about, Dr. Hyden? He’s a real pain in the ass, but he’s a genius. A lot of people hate him, I suppose. But man, he got me to take _religion_ seriously, like, the study of it anyway. So I spent my whole Friday night reading up fifty pages’ worth of _Historical Religion_ and it’s – it’s fascinating, and it reminds me of when you tutored me on the _Spanish Colonization Period_. The whole spreading of Catholicism thing, and I guess I found that interesting, too.” He laid down the new bouquet of flowers down next to last year’s wilted ones. Persephone always reserved the best batch for the 24 th of December, anyway.

“I also got a raise in that crappy old diner. It’s not fun juggling both studying and work, but hey, you’ve went through much worse. I figured if you could handle uni, working at Duane Reade, poring over all sorts of bills every month, managing me and being a full-time mom, I could make do with two tasks at hand, right?” Bianca was super-woman, essentially. God knows how she managed to do all those things and at the end of the day still find the energy to spend time with him. Nico knew she was always tired, but she did her best to not let it show. She tiptoed around him at times, feeling as if one wrong move and he would shatter. Nico hadn’t liked that at all, but he couldn’t just confront his sister about it. He was a huge burden, which he understood. No use voicing pointless opinions out.

“And I met someone. Well, actually, I passed by someone every day for a long period in my life and never spoke to them but eventually managed to hold a conversation when we were both down in the dumps and waiting for the night bus just outside a strip club.” Nico snuggles deeper into his aviator jacket when the wind picked up and the chill of December demanded to be noticed.

“His name is Jason and he’s majoring in Political Science, and while I think that course is stupid, he’s actually really smart and a little too attractive and wonderful for his own good. Am I gushing? Gods, I should stop but – no. He’s just – he’s _amazing_ , okay? Blue-eyed muscle-y blond, looks kind of preppy but isn’t a douche, plays football which sounds cliché but it’s not when it comes to him. Dork at heart, knows how to play Mythomagic, has good taste in music, and he’s kind of a neat-freak but don’t tell him I said that because he’s actually touchy about it, if you could imagine. Best part, though? I have his number.” He digs out his phone from his front pocket and flashes Jason’s contact towards the tombstone, and as if on cue, it buzzes and he receives a text from said semi-preppy non-douche dork.

**_Jay Grace –_ ** _14:54 **:** Thalia’s out with her hockey team and mine are all a bunch of Grinches, the whole lot of them. Spending Christmas alone. Woe is I._

Nico’s lips curl into a smile and he immediately texts back –

**_You –_ ** _14:55: Is that an invitation, Grace?_

The reply came just as fast.

**_Jay Grace –_ ** _14:55: Only if you say yes. If you’re not, consider it as me whining._

**_You_** _– 14:56:_ _Expect the arrival of a package à la di Angelo bearing presents and yuletide cheer at 7._

**_Jay Grace –_ ** _14:56: The host demands pizza, and should the requirements not be met, said package shall be sent to the return address immediately._

**_You –_ ** _14:57: Beggars can’t be choosers._

**_You –_ ** _14:57: What flavour?_

**_Jay Grace –_ ** _14:58: Something with a lot of cheese, but other than that, you choose. I’ll see you at 7??_

**_You –_ ** _14:58: Wouldn’t miss it._

**_Jay Grace –_ ** _14:58: I’m counting on that._

 

Nico grins goofily down at the screen, feeling giddy and light, and no matter how disgusting that sounds, he can’t stop smiling. It’s been a little over a few months now since they ‘met’, and it’s been months filled with un-awkward meets and hanging out and going on study dates on a regular basis.

Jason was someone he’s always wanted but never deserved. The guy was like a Spartan, all commanding and no-nonsense when it comes to school. But a plethora of facets can be found if you took the time to get to know him a little more, and when Nico found the dorkier, i-still-keep-my-childhood-trinkets-with-me side of him, his heart thawed. He was an all-around nice guy and borderline-perfect, if not for the fact that he seems mad enough to, uh _, take interest_ in a certain dark-haired mishap.

                The Virgin Exodus incident led to them talking all night long and ignoring the arrival of the bus which came at 9, and so they walked back home and just kept chatting aimlessly about everything and anything. Nico found out that like him, Jason’s mother was deceased and his father was MIA. He lives with his sister who’s the star player of their university’s girl’s hockey team The Hunters. In turn, Nico told him about his own family and how he’s been alone for three years since his sister passed away.

                Nico found out that Jason took his coffee black and didn’t like sweets and the ilk – except for brownies. He once tried to eat a stapler when he was a kid which resulted in the scar on his lip, to which Nico laughed and laughed until his stomach hurt and Jason soon joined in because he says Nico’s laugh was infectious, to which he quieted down at the sudden comment.

                But Nico didn’t know his gender preferences, but it would be just his luck (he doesn’t have any) if he were bi, at least. He’s already suffered through one heart break in high school after pining over an unattainable green-eyed boy who only ever saw him as a little brother; he doesn’t want to experience another. Then again, it was Jason who asked for his number (in which in that moment he couldn’t punch in the blond’s phone properly due to his shaking hands). Now, months later, a day hasn’t since passed by without them texting or meeting up because for some reason Jason _liked_ hanging out with him, and he _liked_ talking about geeky stuff with him, and it’s all just too good to be true.

                On a more pessimistic note, Nico wonders when this’ll all tire out or when Jason will grow bored and sick of him.

                He puts his phone back in his pocket and smiles down at picture-Bianca, and in that split second he _swears_ it looked like she was giving him a knowing smile. “Looks like I’ll be spending Christmas for the first time in forever. Ha, Frozen reference. I can’t believe Jason got me to watch that, do you see what the little shit is doing to me? Gods, I hate him,” he says and stands up, gathering his messenger bag and arranging the bouquet of daisies once more.

                “I never thought I’d be – I don’t know – _okay_ again. Not after you, and not since then. But I am okay, and this time it’s true, I guess. But I’m scared that the Fates are going to pull this okayness from under my feet one day and it’ll all go to shit again. I’ll enjoy it for now, I suppose. Savor the moments. I’ll stay with him, as long as he’ll have me.”

                And then he walks away, feeling a tad melancholy but otherwise light-hearted. He shoots a last glance back at Bianca’s grave and smiles. He gets to his car and peels off the driveway, hoping _Domino’s_ doesn’t have many customers today.

 

                _iv._

_[and it goes like this]_

Thursdays are rain pelting down on his bedroom window as Ingrid Michaelson’s voice carried around the whole house from the stereo in the living room. It is dark clouds and icy tiles as the lights flicker on and off due to water-logged cable wires. It’s the kind of rain that has every shop and school and banks and houses closed as they retreat and entomb themselves within the comforts of their own homes as the storm rages on outside their safe havens.

                It is times like these when the apartment seems so lonely with the scarce lights and without another living being moving around as he watches the grandfather clock swing and sound that he starts to remember; and then suddenly he feels everything. From the bath water that’s slightly too cold, to the pain in that old man in the tv’s eyes as he walks through the street and wonders how he came to be so alone. He thinks such small and intricate thoughts; untouched blades, so dangerously sharp. These kinds of thoughts cut deeper than any razor, and yet he craves to swim in a river of red: to feel that he wasn’t alone, and that the drops of life wasting away doesn’t go unnoticed as his sunken eyes seek a reprieve that will never come. That’s why, he thinks, shallow people are ever so fortunate, with their pristine minds and common thoughts that scratch no deeper than the blunt nails and pencil ends or the gentle hands that caress their bodies.

                And he remembers, all of those days in Maine when Bianca was taken away from him. How he kicked and shouted and protested, yet they were separated by the school, still. He remembers how he would sneak into her dorm room when her room mates were already asleep but he can’t get a wink, and he remembers every line of all the lullabies she would sing quietly in the late depths of night until he drifted off and she would carry him all the way back.

                He remembers the day they got out and moved to another city, another school. Bianca was just about to start college and he was a junior in high school. And then the struggle to acceptance, and all the panic attacks and the blood on the bathroom floor. Things he’s never done or experienced again after taking independence and adopting Bianca’s role. Relapses were unavoidable, but he believes he’s gotten better now.

                And then there was that fateful night, a Thursday at Rosie’s. Not the good kind of significant. Rather, it was something he’s prayed and prayed to forget and never to resurface his memory again. He remembers the thunder that rumbled throughout the city, and the stark lightning that ripped through the skylines of Manhattan. And then the smell of floor wax and the hand that encircled his navel tenderly but gripped his will painfully. They had whispered wanton musings in his ear, breath hot and wet against his neck. Nico hadn’t seen who they were, for the night was a whirl of spiked cola, dizziness, and closing up the diner.

                And he remembers, awfully vivid, how they fucked him, right then and there: with him inebriated and sad and vulnerable; bones too brittle and muscles too pliable to protest or push them away. (He tried to fight, _oh_ how he tried to.)

 They fucked him raw and the pain surmounted the little pleasure of his first ever, and it was filthy and disgusting, but he felt that so was he. They didn’t have sex, and certainly did not ‘make love’. They fucked. The word was vile and simple, and it was awful, no matter which angle you look at it. Nico would have filed a case against his assaulter, if only he had known who they were. And if only he was strong enough to cling to the idea that it was someone from Rosie’s, someone he _knew_ , and someone he _co-existed_ for a full five hours with. But his mind completely rejects the thought, because he still thinks people don’t just do that. They don’t just attack and conquer; they don’t just harm and up and walk away _; they don’t just do things like that_. He thinks himself naïve, no matter how much he’s been through and all the lesions that never mended. But he has himself convinced, and he must try and pretend it never happened in hopes that it never really was real.

  The diner was empty that night, just after the employee’s-only party ended and he was in charge of cleaning and locking up. But the back door was open and anyone could have entered.

He didn’t say ‘no’, per se, but he had thought it, and he had felt it burn in his throat but he couldn’t speak. He stumbled and tripped his way home feeling so, so, so dirty and soiled, and who would want him properly _now_? When he’s been _violated_ and _forced upon_. Who would want someone else’s sullied thrown-away one-night-plaything?

                He’d drawn himself a cold bath, trying to wash away the marks of their fingertips and lips and murmurs from his grubby skin vehemently. He pressed and rubbed every patch of flesh and cried until he felt like he was drowning and the water came up to his chin. And then he fell asleep after scrubbing himself pink, waking up sore and hung-over like a priest on a Sunday. He had cried again, feeling used and helpless and altogether traumatized. And he came to wonder again how people could just do things like that. How they could be as selfish and cruel as to only think about their gain and just arbitrarily choose a victim and take advantage of them. How they could just stay for a bout of enjoyment and leave their prey angry and confused for the rest of their lives. Do they wake up and just decide that they’re going to be horrible?

  _Why do these things happen to me?_ He thought bitterly, the words leaving a sour taste like the cigarettes he’s tried to smoke so long ago.

                It just kept coming in strings. His birth mother, dead; his sister, dead; his father, dead the moment he walked out; his luck, rotten; his mind, slowly going insane; his virginity, taken, stomped, and pissed on. What’s next? He fears the worst.

                But his memories were not all bad, and that has to account for something. He remembers, a few months ago, on his birthday when the world chose to have a Good Day. The weather was fair and Hazel had taken a train to Manhattan and dropped by his apartment, a box of cake in hand. They had spent it watching reruns of _Friends_ and _Gossip Girl_ while catching up with each other’s lives.

Hazel told him about New Orleans and how she met a boy named Frank, and he thanked whatever god or capital ‘G’ God would listen to him that his half-sister was happy and that her eyes don’t look dead, not like his. He knew no one could ever replace Bianca; however, Hazel was all he had. But she couldn’t stay, _of course_ she couldn’t stay. Because she had a better life back in her own home, and a boyfriend to have a future with and Nico could not – _would not_ – weigh her down. No matter how much he wanted her to stay. So she left him a day later, with promises to visit and instructions to take care of himself (haha).

Another good memory was when he aced his bio exam last semester with the help of Red Bull and flash cards. He’d celebrated it with two bottles of wine and got drunk for the third time in his life, relishing in his small victory and laughing at the prospect of his fortune lasting because it didn’t, it never would. Once, he found a penny on the ground and gave it to a blind beggar in the alleyway. He considered it as his Good Deed of the Year. There was also that time when Percy, an old friend and flame, visited, and he had given him a tour of his apartment (which took, like, ten seconds) and they went to the Oceanarium because they were always Percy’s favourite kind of place. Could that even be considered as a good memory? His chest constricted whenever the guy mentioned his perfect girlfriend Annabeth, and winced whenever he mentioned how much she would love the architectural designs there. (But at the end of the day Percy hugged him good-bye and oh wow – so _that’s_ how euphoria feels like.)

His good memory roll stops at Jason Grace.

 He remembers the five weeks after they became properly acquainted: how Jason would go to lengths to hang out with Nico, which he found absurd. And that one day they went to one of the State Fairs together ( _“It was supposed to be a group kind of thing, but all of my friends canceled out so it’s just you and me, Neeks.”)_ and the blond had won him a Plants vs. Zombies zombie plushie. He looked at the thing incredulously and asked Jason _what_ _the hell_ he was supposed to do with it and was on his way to throwing the toy in the trash when Jason shot him that Look. The one wherein he would look like a very adorable and very sad puppy and nope – _nope,_ the plushie is, sure enough, currently perched proudly on his desk, its beady eyes laughing at him.

Jason had puked after going to the Space Shuttle rather comically, what with him downing four chilidogs and a coke before the ride, so they had to stop and sit on a bench for a while until the blond could walk straight again. He had apologized sheepishly, his embarrassment barefaced, and they had missed the last bus that would charter them home and taking a taxi or the subway was out of the question when they’re flat-out broke after having purchased every ticket and food that ever existed in the fair.

Nevertheless, it was a pleasant walk back with only silence and solitude as their company. Nico would indulge himself into thinking that they had both been thinking about certain things that night; that it had been as much of an introspective affair for Jason as it was for him.

 And they lapsed into the kind of quiet dusk had to offer, neither speaking and only walking side by side. Nico had thought about where they stood, and how he was starting to like this Jason fellow more than he should, because he’s long learned to veer away from falling for the perfect, inaccessible types. About how he’s met a lot of said types and successfully drew back or ran away and hid in his shell; and then about how maybe, just this once, he screwed up and instead of shrinking into himself he charged headfirst into the mayhapness of the road they walk together in; and that maybe, just this once too, he’s allowed himself to slip and fall deep, _deep_ , <small> deep </small> into the concession of denial and that yes – he’s gone too far under. (And there’s no going up.)

“Thanks for the zombie,” Nico had suddenly whispered. Jason turned to look at him and flashed him a 1000-watt smile. “And for everything else, too, I guess.”

The blond had stood to a still and mock-bowed, saying, “It has been an honour to bask in the company of one Nico di Angelo for six straight hours while eating corn dogs, candy floss, and subsequently throwing all of it up after going on all the roller coasters.” Nico then laughed, and then Jason followed, and he didn’t know of it was the sugar rush or the fading adrenaline, but he took a leap of faith and grabbed Jason’s hand and tugged him forward. Jason’s hand was pleasantly warm against his cold skin, and even without hazarding a look back at the boy, Nico could almost _feel_ the crimson dancing in the blond’s cheeks.

                And as they walked under the stars and through the veil of city lights, chatter, and the pretense of being alone, he knew one of these days the boy would take him home.

                (Thursdays are memories, and he’ll take all the good ones he can get.)

 

                _v._

_[and it goes like this]_

Fridays are good morning texts sans the ‘good morning’, world maps, class-off’s, and a day of pure neglect. It is missing pairs of shoes and slapdash fashion sense, with accidental pink flamingo ties and unfortunate corduroy pants.

                He wakes up to a buzzing phone and a text from his favourite home-trespasser (it’s like Jason doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that he even _has_ his own place) and opens his inbox.

                **_Jay Grace –_** _8:34: Are u up yet???_

_**You –** 8:34: Ciao, motherfucker._

_**Jay Grace –** 8:35: Oh good, you are. Get dressed; we’re going on an adventure._

Nico raises his eyebrow and squints blearily at the screen but nevertheless makes his way to the bathroom and takes a quick shower, afterwards haphazardly throwing on a poorly assembled outfit consisting of a flannel shirt and corduroy pants that never fit him well. How a pink tie he got from a dollar store got thrown into the mix, he hasn’t any inkling. He settles for a black shirt and dark skinny jeans (Hazel says it compliments his ass and may Heaven rain its wrath upon him if he wanted to impress the guy he likes) that he usually wore, well, all the time. Maybe people were starting to wonder if he has, like, a hundred pairs of black jeans and black shirts and wake up each day thinking _“I wonder what to wear today. Hmm, how about a black shirt and pants equally as dark as my soul?”_

Picking up the phone, he replies a couple of minutes later.

                **_You –_** _8:51: And pray tell what kind of adventure are we embarking on?_

If it had been rehearsed, Nico would have not screamed and dropped his phone. _If_ it had been rehearsed, Nico would not have had a block of metal crash into his foot and he would not have had to bite down his cheek to keep from howling in pain. But as it is, it was not, and so he did in fact scream and drop his phone and injure his foot and probably bit and broken into skin when the doors suddenly burst open, and in came Jason Grace sauntering into Nico’s living room like he owned it.

                “The kind that involves a little monotonous activity and a lot of effort to not fall asleep while standing up, but I have our tickets, since several of friends and acquaintances have already turned me down, and so we will brave through this storm together.” He regards Nico with a slight disapproving look for a second, and then he smiles almost affectionately immediately and says, “You got me cracked. It’s a museum, babe, not a wake.”

                The dark-haired teen does not bat an eye and goes, “Since when did you care about what I wear to things.”

                “Since I announced that we were going on a very tedious adventure.”

                “I will stop wearing black when they invent a darker colour.”

                “You know what, you’re right, I don’t care about your choice of clothing. Just haul your ass in Tempest and let’s go to an exhibit.” Jason grabs what he deems as ‘breakfast material’ (i.e. a cup of yoghurt and a banana) from the fridge and hands it to Nico while ushering him out the door, spinning his keys to Tempest around his index finger.

                And out they go to the door and down the hall ( _“Did you lock up?”; “Yes.”; “Did you bring your keys?”; “Nah, you have the spare anyways.”; “Nuh-uh.”; “Like hell you don’t!”)_ , waving down at Moira, the complex’s perpetually half-awake receptionist who narrows her sleepy eyes at them.

                They step out and the brisk winds of Manhattan immediately greets them, spinning fallen leaves in a tunnel and sending torn pieces of newspapers rolling through the paved walkways. “Weather forecast says it’s going to rain a little today,” Jason mentions. “You left your umbrella in my car anyways so we’ll be fine.” Technically, it wasn’t Nico’s umbrella. It had been the very umbrella Jason thrust into his fingers that one day it seemed that Zeus was angry at the world and Nico just happened to leave home without any kind of protection against sudden storms. The guy had jogged up to him and offered – no, _shoved_ his polka-dotted umbrella at him and promptly, without any kind of remark, turned on his heel and ran for the small coffee shop across the bus stop in seek of refuge, leaving him at a loss and well, a chance to go home somewhat dry then.

                He kept the umbrella, because he was kind of selfish like that. But it wasn’t like Jason had mentioned anything about wanting it back, anyway. Now, though, it seems they’ve both acknowledged who the umbrella really belonged to.

                They made their way over to Tempest, Jason’s silver Camaro and got in. Nico turned the AC on full blast even though only hot air blew out the first few seconds. It was a relatively hot day, so it was bound to be the kind of rain that mixed in with the humidity in the air, which Nico detested as much as Jason does staplers.

                “So where is this thing supposed to be?” The dark-haired teen asks. “Just past Fifth, it’s actually rather big for a traveling exhibit,” Jason explains. “ Like, _really_ , big. It’s a huge place. They claim to be America’s largest travelling exhibit, but that’s still debatable. They have a few varieties, from what the brochure features. The _Society Through the Millennia_ was their highlight, though. But they have all kinds of history stuff and there’s this wall with a big-ass map that has glowing spots over places with historical events that have occurred over the years. Plus this huge ball of bubble gum they made out of collecting them from middle school armchairs as a bonus. And a human anatomy part from the Ancient Egypt section with actual fetuses and mummified examples. Cadaver-galore!”

                Jason shoots him a sidelong glance with an impish smile, with full knowledge that Nico absolutely detests it when people looked at him even the slightest bit knowingly. “What?” Nico demands, scowling at the blond.

                “Nothing.” Eyes on the road. Holding back a laugh. He’s in trouble.

                “What do you mean ‘nothing’, cut the crap!” Hand gestures commence. Pale cheeks fill with colour.

                “It’s just – just that… you looked like a kid with a sugar high on Christmas when I mentioned the human bodies.” Sly smile. Free hand crawling towards passenger seat.

                “Oh.” Warmth rises. Oh wait, no, that’s a hand. _Jason Grace’s exceptionally warm hand._ “Screw you, Grace.”

                “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” A precariously thrown wink. Choking sounds ensue.

                “ _Christ,_ Grace!”

                And then Jason laughs his laugh again, the one Nico associates with hope. And there’s mischief in his eyes and the kind of twinkle that tells him that even if it rains today and every day that followed after that, and the unfavourable balminess of the air would engulf him whole, there would always be someone – some blond that’s just a little too beautiful and amazing for their own good – that would time and time again run up to him, polka-dot umbrella in hand, ready to sacrifice their being contently dry to save someone like him from the blasted hurricane of his life.

                Jason’s large hand doesn’t move from its position atop paler ones the whole ride, and Nico doesn’t mind the least bit.

 

. . .

 

                “Wanna hear a joke?”

                “If it has anything to do with the Greek History Wall of Bad Puns we passed earlier on, then no.”

                “Nooo… it’s not, okay?”

                “Strikhedonia.”

                “So a Roman walks into a bar and asks for a martinus –“

                “For the love of Juno!”

                “You literally said ‘fuck it’ in the most pretentious wordsmith way anyone could ever think of, there is no going back.”

                “Mngrrfngrrf.”

                “Okay so they ask for a martinus, and the bartender goes ‘You mean a martini?’ –“

                “Here we go.”

                “And then the Roman replies indignantly ‘If I wanted a double, I would have asked for it!’”

                Jason’s grin grows even wider and he pokes Nico in the stomach repeatedly in an _‘eh? Eh?’_ gesture. The dark-haired teen rolls his eyes at the sight, but felt an involuntary tug on the corner of his lips turn into a lopsided smile. It wasn’t Greek, but same thing goes for all history jokes that one twit in the room tells.

                “You’re an idiot,” Nico remarks, shrugging Jason’s hand off his shoulder. “Now let’s go.” So far, they’ve already combed through the Greco-Roman society section, and Nico rather liked learning about his alleged roots (there was that one time he tried ancestry.com and went through all its bullshit just for the heck of it). He was determined to reach the anatomy section because he’s disturbed like that, but it’s whatever. The day was turning out just fine, with not a single drop of rain on the exhibit’s venue. And Jason was good company, even though he was being a tad silly most of the time whenever he stumbles upon some really interesting piece of information _(“Did you know that gladiator blood was recommended by Roman physicians to aid various ailments,_ including _epilepsy and infertility?!”)._

                As he drags Jason by the hem of his CJU jacket, he hears the blond groan and say out loud, “I can’t believe I have a crush on a guy who doesn’t appreciate bad Roman puns.” Nico snorts at that and shoots back, “There is a fine line between quality jokes and bad ones, and you, good sir, are teetering on a very dangerous precipice.” It was a biting retaliation, but all he could think about and all that raced through his mind is Jason’s voice, clear as day, _“I can’t believe I have a crush on a guy who doesn’t appreciate Roman jokes.” Crushcrushcrushcrush._ He’s got it bad, and staring at preserved corpses could maybe, probably, hopefully make the blush on his face fade to its usual pallor.

 

. . .

 

                The cadavers didn’t help. Mainly because all the while they were holding hands Jason’s warmth seeped through Nico’s skin and he was worried that his palms were getting sweaty and Jason might, like, get disgusted or some shit, so in surmise, he hadn’t even paid attention when the woman in charge of the tour went on explaining about the Egyptian’s concept of mummification. Something he’s sure to have been extremely interesting, had he actually been listening.

                They come to a stop at the aforementioned “big-ass map that has glowing spots over places with historical events that have occurred over the years”. True to the blond’s words, it definitely was big. It took the whole surface area of a roughly 30’x9’ wall and its flickering lights cast a glow akin to fairy lights across a section of the room. Nico stares at it in awe, and when the lights completely went out all of a sudden, the words ‘IS THAT ALL THERE IS?’ was written in cursive at the top-most part of the wall, backlit and eye-catching.

                “Is that all there is,” Nico says in a low voice. “Huh?” Jason quips. The dark-hair boy shakes his head, squeezing the hand that was intertwined with his. “Just, that up there –“ he points to the lit up question above their heads, “ – and if you look down at the earth, is that all there is?”

                Jason follows Nico’s gaze and he smiles softly, warmly, slowly, and Nico’s chest is hurting again. He doesn’t have to say much, because Jason understands. He understands how Nico feels about eternity, how that and oblivion kindofsortofjustabit scares him. Jason knows what Nico thinks about fame and its futility, and how despite himself, kindofsortofjustabit wants to matter, too. They know each other like that.

                The blond squeezes back, and shuffles closer to the obsidian-eyed boy until Jason’s chest is touching Nico’s shoulder blades.

                “If you look at the whole of it,” Jason starts, tracing Russia’s contours with the pad of his index finger, “it’s not much. It may look big, but compared to other planets like Jupiter and more so, other galaxies, it’s not nearly as large, but there’s a reason they call it ‘space’. But if you think of it that way, it’ll never make sense, Neeks. If you calculate the earth’s land and water mass and take everyone who exists here and measure the size of their bodies to the heft of their dreams, thoughts, and deeds –  it’ll never add up. You’ll never be able to tell what is greater and grander to what is smaller and less significant, not unless you actually took the time to see it not as just a planet floating in the universe with limits, but as this big ball of something that contains just that. Think of it as a convenient holding space for us, for everyone’s ambitions and faith. And take that, and compare it to what you see right now. “

                He takes Nico’s chin in his free hand and positions it so that their eyes are focusing on the same thing. “All these countries, just a bunch of dirt and water smack-dab in the middle of the world. From a distance, it just looks like 196 irregular shapes erected. But in those 196, there are 7 billion people who continue to exist, and trillions of dreams that continue to thrive,” he says softly; very quietly, like it was clandestine information only for Nico’s ears to hear. “And somewhere in that 196 and 7 billion, is one city, and two people, currently caught up in philosophical jargon with just the right amount of ambiguity to sound relatively whimsical and smart.” Nico starts to laugh, and Jason joins him but keeps talking, keeps holding him close. “And you take those two people, and you take their memories and the length of their bodies or the span of their regrets and compare it to the size of this whole exhibit, this whole city. And it _still won’t add up_.”

                So Nico does. He calculates, he tries to take the heat of Jason pressing against his back, and the rough calloused hands holding his own. And he takes his memories, and takes those with Jason, and he takes all his feelings and emotions and everything else, tries to collect whatever barefaced sentiment Jason’s ever shown, and he correlates all of them into one muddled ball of emotion and vague instances. All the love and all the indifference, coming together in a brackish embrace; the anguish and serenity; the laughs and the tears; all of Nico and all of the boy standing right behind him.

 All those, every emotion and every recollection and every experience contained in such a small room; small city; small world. And Jason’s right, because it just _doesn’t make any sense._ It doesn’t make sense how it all fit, and how the whole of the globe could enclose seven billion individuals with their own masses of maelstrom lives. It doesn’t make sense how our hearts beat a hundred times per minute, how there is _life_ pulsing through our veins. And this moment right now, for instance, with Nico pressed up against Jason, and people see them. Some may wonder, but only for a while, because they could only ever _see them_. Some may not, but it didn’t matter, because _they_ can feel it. Whatever this is. They feel the shared heat and shared inclination of hearts. Straying, but not at all falling at once. Because it’s always been like this, with the day ending and them washing up between the thin boundary of being sortof Friends and sortof Something More. And it still doesn’t make sense, when you take all this and quantify the breadth that extends between this continent and that. It never will.

So he thinks, maybe that’s not all there is. And it’s not all that vanilla and black and white. And you cannot even start to measure up the heft of one man’s life to the weight of the bricks of his home. The world is not everything that’ll ever represent us, because really, it’s just a container for us and everything we’ve done and are doing.

Suddenly the map lights up. Red, angry, faint beams representing landmarks of importance, and it went in a sequence. The fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D.; the extinction of dinosaurs millions of years back; the death of William Shakespear in April, 1616 and all his works enlisted; the birth of The Adarna Bird written by the anonymous poet, and it went on and on in every part of the universe, letters so small and cramped it was almost impossible to read comfortably. And all of a sudden, Nico realizes as he looks at the geography of the world and then at the words that made a part of history up, it’s not all there is.

 There were loads of things that didn’t go down in history, things private and more important to us than some. Like a birthday or an unforgettable trip out of the country. Things we keep close to our hearts and only recorded in our minds. Things the world will never know about, but does not in any way lessen its value.

“There are things that are important to the world, and there are things that are important to us,” Nico states, not taking his eyes off the dynamic wall.

“And it’s the same thing,” Jason says.

“And it’s the same thing,” Nico agrees. They are quiet for a while, processing this new thought and mulling it over; savoring the barest hint of an epiphany. “Did you plan this?” He asks, looking back at the blond. “I don’t believe much in coincidences.” Jason grins sheepishly and scratches the back of his head, “Let’s just say the tickets weren’t a mistake, and I didn’t actually ask anyone else to go with me. Just you.”

“Just me?”

“Yes, Neeks. Just you.”

Nico’s looking at him properly now, twisting a little to face him. “Well, why?” And he’s suddenly too close, a hair’s breadth away; their breaths mingling together and voices sounding louder than usual.

“I wanted to make history,” Jason states simply. And if he were to say it to anyone else, it would not have made sense. But to Nico, it’s all it takes for him to close the little distance between them, and press his lips to his.

It was brief and innocent, but it held all the words unspoken between them for the past months they’ve been stuck as aforementioned friends and something more. Nico’s chest burns at the contact, and he feels his heart stutter and skip beats and work overtime. Because Jason is kissing him, right here, right now, right in the middle of America’s Debatably Largest Travelling Exhibit and it’s the kind of miracle that only happens if you’ve been hit by an apple on the head and discover gravity or figure out the first hundred digits of pi.

And they feel it, the charge. The sense of complete and head-spinning euphoria of finally having done what they’ve longed for, and that was their lips against the other, and Nico feels whole again. But the kiss soon ends, because breathing is a necessity, and it also seems like they’ve acquired a small crowd already.

Nico pulls away just as Jason chases his mouth down, and then settles for a kiss on the forehead that feels like a promise. He looks up at the blond through thick lashes almost coyly, like he couldn’t believe what he had just done, but Jason smiles at him and it makes his heart swell, and he’s filled with the kind of warmth that could just about set you on fire.

Nico breathes a little heavily and his eyes flit from corner to corner, at the faces of the audience of their kiss. He feels himself shrinking into his jacket, face flushing even more if that were even possible. _They’re angry,_ he thinks. _They came here to see America’s Debatably Largest Travelling Exhibit and its twenty-inch gum ball, and we are standing in the middle of their vision, two college guys kissing, and they are very angry and disgusted._ He bites the inside of his cheek, feeling like opening the ground and letting it swallow him whole. But the sound that met his hears wasn’t that of jeering, but instead, a soft applause.

He looks up to see people smiling at them, some wolf-whistling and others actually clapping. The red of the wall lights up Nico’s face unnaturally, and slowly, as his anxiety lets up, he smiles back at them, and then at Jason. “Guess we really did make history,” Nico jokes as Jason chuckles and pecks him on the lips just for good measure, saying, “Yeah, it’s like they came to see us instead of ‘ol Map o’ Lights here.”

Later, as they make their way to the exit stop, a man with a camera around his neck jogs up to them and grins, panting heavily and holding up one finger. “Give – give me a second, yes?” He says in heavily accented English. The man then digs into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a Polaroid photo of them engaged in a lip-lock not too long ago, and Nico’s cheeks inflame as he accepts the picture. “Thank you, sir.” The foreigner takes a bow and shoots them one last grin and says, “ _A bela jovem é bonito_.”

Jason frowns and whispers to the dark-haired teen beside him, “What does that mean?”

“The beautiful couple is beautiful,” the man remarks, tipping his hat to them and turning on his heel. Jason laughs, earning a playful punch on the shoulder from Nico. “Wait just a sec,” the dark-haired teen says, fishing out an omnipresent marker from his back pocket. Nico scrawls a short message on the space between the square of the photo and its grid and runs back to the Wall. He walks up to America and locates the little red beam of New York and fits it in between Queens and Brooklyn, right below when the Dutch purchased Manhattan Island from the Lenape Native Americans for 60 guilders in 1626.

And on the bottom of the picture, written in black Sharpee, were the words:

_April 19, Friday._

_I kissed Jason Grace._

 

                _vi._

_[and it goes like this]_

Saturdays are stories, and secrets that cannot be kept for long. It is mild sun and midnight’s dew on the grass as the world goes on in its rightful dynamic. It is waking up to warmth and kisses, omelets for breakfast, and dancing goofily in the kitchen to early morning show tunes.

 _“When we were young, we were small but we didn’t know it,”_ Lucy Schwartz’s voice saturates into the di Angelo abode. _“When you were hurt, you would smile so you didn’t show it.”_

“And I – can’t believe you’re mine,” Jason sings into Nico’s hair, sleepy voice breaking a little at the last note as they move through his small kitchen at six in the morning, still dressed in their night clothes. They’re doing a sort of dance, sort of slow side-ways-back walking and it was silly but nice, Nico thinks.

_“I can’t believe you’re mine.”_

“What do you want to do today?” Jason asks quietly, rubbing small circles on the hand he’s holding. Nico shrugs and nuzzles into his boyfriend’s neck, slightly sighing in content. “We’ve no class today and I go to work at the record shop on weekdays only, and – when did you say you start working at Zane Clark?”

Rosie’s was a thing of the past, Nico decided when he submitted his resignation form and walked out to hear the familiar door chime sound, expecting to feel the remorse that never came. He’s worked there for a year and a half and it was okay, but he felt no love for the building. And certainly no love for the awful memories he’s long left there. Zane Clark was a music store close to Third, a few blocks from The Virgin Exodus. Nico applied there partially for the relatively good pay and partially since he considers the vicinity kind of lucky.

Nico rests his head on Jason’s chest, something his height allows him to and says, “Tomorrow, actually. But I don’t think I want to go anywhere today.”

“Why’s that?” Jason asks. “We’ve had too many escapades already, it’s time to rest for a while,” Nico says flatly and makes Jason chuckle. “And pray tell what kind of escapades are we talking about?” the blond teases, to which Nico makes a face at.  “Okay, so how about we just talk today? Swap childhood stories and embarrassing moments, absolutely no fibs, just the plain truth,” Jason suggests. Nico thinks this over for a few seconds and snorts, “And why would we do that.” It was not a question.

“I wish to know more about you Nico di Angelo.”

Somehow, Nico thinks, a simple statement like that effectively shut him up and they find themselves nestled on the couch a moment later. Jason tells him new stories about his childhood and the broken family he has. He tells him about his sister Thalia, who practically raised him in lieu of their drunkard mom. Nico relates this to his own dysfunctional family and the dead mother, the dead sister, and the evil step-mother who came straight out of the story books. He remembers saying something similar back when they first met and the thought made him smile.

“Past romances?” Nico asks because he just can’t help it.

“Just one, or maybe two, but it wasn’t really official,” Jason hesitates. “Her name was Piper and she sure was charismatic and beautiful and all that, but our relationship… let’s say half of it wasn’t even real. My step-mom wanted me to have a trophy girlfriend and she fit the picture, so she practically forced us together. We were good, but we weren’t real.

“Reyna on the other hand was my co-captain in a football summer training camp, and we got along well. It was apparent that she expected more from me – from _us_ than just camaraderie, but I couldn’t give her that. I liked her, but not in the way she wanted me to. It wouldn’t be fair to her. I think the problem with me then is that I end things even before it started to happen and that – that backfires. I feel  kind of guilty, kind of mean. It’s just one of the things you can’t help but be afflicted with.”

For a moment Nico is quiet as he mulls over Jason’s last sentence. Being a perpetual disappointment is one thing he can’t help but be afflicted with. So is pushing people away – even those who he loves, however small that count is. Suddenly Nico realizes how much at fault he is in being a person, and that is also something he can’t help but be afflicted with.

His reply comes as a whisper, “Indeed.”

Their whole morning was spent like that, with them lounging on the couch and sharing stories. They talked about the most pointless things, like TV sitcoms and favourite seasons. And then they talked about the more crucial, profound parts of their lives. Sorrows were unveiled and mirth was spilled, and by the time Jason was talking about one of his failed attempts at skateboarding _(“I had a phase.”)_ Nico felt like he could already create a timeline and map Jason’s life out.

Suddenly Nico feels sort of guilty, because here he was, opting to stay as quiet as he can as to not reveal too much of his unfavourable past while Jason was _literally_ telling him about his whole life. It just wasn’t… cool.

Besides, they say the key to any healthy relationship is communication, right? Among other things like honesty and trust, or whatever the hell Hazel and Rachel told him about when they first heard that he had gotten into a relationship. Well, Nico does trust Jason; trusts him more than anyone, really. He’d already given Jason that, and he’d known long ago that he’d willingly give him more. (Heart, mind, and soul, if that doesn’t sound cheesy enough.) They’ve been dating for, what, almost half a year now? Three months shy away, at least. And they’ve known each other and have been friends for even longer than it that.

So Nico decides to bite the bullet.

“I was raped,” he says quietly, abruptly, simply. And then Jason is a marble statue, still and tense next to Nico. The air stands to a still as the Earth refuses to circle its axis as every sound is cut sharp and the winds have ceased to whistle through the windows.

Jason, as if gradually remembering how to breathe, inhales deeply and blinks. And then blinks again. “Sorry?” Nico starts to panic because _this isn’t just something you tell your boyfriend so casually_. It’s not something you just lay down on the table or whip out in the middle of a conversation. He looks down at his jeans and crosses and uncrosses his fingers – a nervous habit of his. Nico sucks in a breath, mentally bracing himself for an onslaught of physical and emotional distress. He looks up at Jason –

And he talks.

He talks about Thursdays and Rosie’s, and the memories he could never really wipe out from the back of his mind. His breath comes in short gasps as his mouth moves a thousand words per minute. Jason is silent the whole time and Nico feels the aberrant racing of his heart: the tell-tale beginnings of a panic attack blossoming in the pit of his stomach. But he pushes this away and concentrates on trying to tell Jason a watered-down version of That Night, and he – well, he ends up telling something that wasn’t diluted enough.  Because suddenly Jason is standing up and grabbing his jacket from the coat rack and Nico’s trembling in fear Jason might be disgusted or angry, or he might just _leave,_ and Nico knows he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to withstand that. “Jason, where’re you – please, _please_ don’t –“

“Nico, you have to get up,” Jason says, deceivingly calm. “We have to – haveto go to the police or something, or talk to someone else about this –“

“Don’t you _dare_ , Grace! I don’t want anyone else getting involved in this, you don’t understand –“

“What’s there left to, Nico?! My boyfriend just told me that he – he got, got raped and never bothered to sue or report anything to anyone –“

“I don’t even know who it was, Jason! And I have no virtual evidence whatsoever –“

“Even then we have to _do_ something about this, we can’t just –“

“Yes we _can_ , I have been ignoring this for so long it doesn’t even matter anymore.”

“Nico, you _can’t just ignore_ something like this! _I_ can’t ignore something like this –“

“Look, I’m sorry that I dragged you into this, but I swear I am _fine_ –“

“ _Please,_ Nico.”

“I _never asked_ you to fix _anything_ , Jay, gods! You don’t have to do this!” Nico’s crying, he knows he is because he recognizes the taste of it better than Bianca’s cooking now. Jason’s red in the face and he looks pained, like he’s grieving for the burden that isn’t his; grieving for something Nico doesn’t want anything to do with. But then Jason drops his jacket reluctantly, and he slowly walks up to Nico and bundles the dark-haired teen in his arms and holds tight.

“Okay,” Jason breathes, pressing a kiss to the crown of Nico’s head. “Okay. We don’t need to do this now, but we’re talking about it later, okay? But don’t you ever say it doesn’t matter, because _you_ matter, Nico, and whatever the hell happens to you matters, you understand?”

“Y-yeah, okay.”

“You know I love you right?” Jason says and suddenly Nico is floored. ‘Cause no, he didn’t. Well, he might have, seen glimpses of the pure, unadulterated emotion, but okay, his muddled mind thinks, okay. A small smile spreads across his face and his heart is working overtime, nerves firing up and right, maybe palpitating just a little bit, what with the whole argument and – and _this_. He feels happy, no, he feels elated _._ He couldn’t exactly process the whole thought that someone like Jason could love someone like Nico; hell, for all he could know Jason wasn’t looking for anything too serious (but then again three and a half months isn’t exactly something to be flippant about) and Nico’d still jump at the opportunity to be with him, to have his fair share of a little infinity. (He’s easy like that, he suspects.)

“Yeah,” Nico admits, “I do.” At this Jason smiles, placing his hands on the handholds of Nico’s face and kissing him sound and well. 

Saturdays are confessions, and one in particular let loose another, much sweeter one. No one ever really said that love was as simple as the colour of the sky, but then again even the Heavens are at times bathed in hues entirely different from azure; like the purple and pink of Aster’s and carnation’s or the red of the Indian sun.

And life, for them, has never been more prismatic.

 

_vii._

_[here it goes]_

                Sundays are endings; they are the markings of a closing door or a farewell kiss given at the end of the day as moments gradually fade into memories. They are profound and painful, a melancholy of sorts reserved and given for the receding hope of return we feel as sentiments begin to die out. They are parting words and whispers of goodbye’s and promises as night falls, day breaks and we are, in the blink of an eye, suddenly, and irrevocably back to square one.

                Nico stares down at the mug of hot chocolate Jason set down for him and dutifully watches the little marshmallows slowly dissipate. Jason sits across from him in his minimalistic (to put it kindly) dining table and watches Nico watch his drink as silence reigns over them.

                The ticking of the kitchen clock is the only thing that pervades their quiet, coupled with the audible _drip-drip_ of the sink and the breaths that came whooshing in and out softly.

                “Nico?” Jason’s imploring voice cuts through the hush. His arm moves to lay on top of the dark-haired teen’s when it immediately draws back before Jason could so much as make contact with it. “You’re…leaving,” Nico starts.

“Well –“

“No, let me rephrase that: you’re leaving _me_.” Nico snaps his head up and looks his boyfriend dead in the eye, daring him to answer with anything short of placating. Jason looks panicked, to say the least. He sputters for a moment as he tries to grasp at the right words to make things less aggravating than it seemed, and ends up with a brilliant: “I, uh…” Nico shakes his head in disbelief and clucks his tongue, “And you were planning to tell me this _when?_ A month before you leave for freakin’ _Europe_ for god knows how long?”

“Neeks, you know how my father is –“

“This is _not_ about your father,” Nico says in a low voice. “This is about us and with this whole senatorial training bullshit, there might not even _be_ an us anymore.” Then when his own words catch up to him his eyes immediately widens, and he knows he’s pushed it too far when Jason seems to recoil into himself, looking like someone had just told him his grandmother died. Nico’s apology catches in his throat and he chokes on it, rendering him trying to take his words back through various sporadic hand movements.

Finally, he settles for a small, “That’s not what I meant.” Nico lets his arms fall down to his lap and slide down to dangle uselessly at his sides as Jason stands up and walks over to him. The blond looks at him with these sad eyes, and there’s something within the blue of his irises, like chromatic specks of regret trying to be conveyed through its azure. “That’s not an option, and you know I won’t let it become one,” Jason says. “I probably won’t even be there for long, baby. And I’ll – I’ll do what I can to go back as early as possible to you, to home, I swear. You don’t have to worry about anything.” But of course Nico has to worry; in fact, it is his occupation to worry and wear himself silly over-thinking quite possibly everything he can over-think about and make the matter at hand seem exponentially more worrying. That is quite frankly what people like him do. It’s in the job description

Jason knows this, though, and he sighs as he rests his forehead against Nico’s, breathing in his air and mixing their breaths. He angles his head to press a soft kiss to Nico’s slightly chapped lips and places his hand on the dark-haired boy’s cheeks. Nico lets out a barely audible whimper and Jason could taste the sweetness of the cocoa left in his mouth, could even taste the salt of something he later identified as tears. He doesn’t know whom it belonged to, however.

The younger man moves to curl his hands around the nape of Jason’s neck as he deepens the kiss, shifting to catch Jason’s bottom lip and nips at it experimentally. Sliding his lips against the blond’s, Nico traces his bottom lip with his tongue slowly, hesitantly – like he’s trying out something new. Jason makes a low noise in his throat that has Nico gasping, and Jason takes that chance to slip his tongue into Nico’s mouth and skim the back of his top lip, granting him a soft moan. And then they’re rolling their tongues together with a practiced ease that was the result of many an instance, and Nico thinks nothing has ever felt so grand. They could do this all day, he thinks, as Jason’s hands holds his waist and rubs circles on his sides. Every kiss with Jason feels like their first, like it’s still entirely new and just as exhilarating, and he loves how he’ll possibly never get tired of it.

Jason, in one swift move of muscle, picks Nico up into his arms and even then was careful in not breaking their kiss. He carries them to the closest thing that could situate them (Nico’s threadbare couch) and there are hands everywhere: touching, lingering, ghosting. Somewhere along the line, Nico’s jacket ended up on the floor and Jason’s shirt was somewhere they would certainly scout for later on, just not now. Not when emotions are running high and Jason’s lips are trailing down nether regions and he’s asking Nico, “Is this okay?” and the young man in question is nodding fervently, cheeks flushed and body pliant under Jason.

Briefly, Nico thinks about how there was a time when this was an addition to one of their many firsts, how clumsy and tense it was at the start. But then that thought got lost in the heat of the haze as his mind clouds over and only the thought of Jason infiltrates his head. They rose and fell to the rhythm of their heartbeats and Jason is careful, he always is. They sink into each other and drown in whispers of _Iloveyou’s_ and sweet murmurs as the sun cast shadows and beams of orange across the apartment.

 

A day later they find Jason’s purple shirt hanging off a lamp in the far corner of Nico’s living room, looking equally ruffled as its owner.

. . .

 

“I have an idea,” Silena Beauregard says over coffee, croissants, and the local delicacy otherwise known as Slim Jims. Nico looks at her warily over his cup of milk with a shot of coffee and braces himself for whatever brilliant idea the resident match-maker and unfortunately his only friend in university had to dish out. She flicks her strawberry-blond hair over her back for business-effect. “I do declare,” she does declare, “that in order to surmount this massive hiccup of yours, Nico dear, you must come up with rather… extraordinary plans to make the best of this last one month with your one true love. Think spontaneous.”

“What, Mythomagic? I don’t think my decks would want to get roughed up in Disneyland, S,” Nico replies sardonically. Silena only gives him this patronizing look that says _oh-you-poor-thing_ and shoots back, “Not if any of your expansion packs come in blue-eyed, blond, and gorgeous.” Which to that, he had to agree.

Silena had rung him early in the morning and quite literally demanded they get breakfast together at _Café Roma_ , where the usual hipsters and/or insomniacs have long decided to band together. Initially, he’d been put-off by the idea of being surrounded by the café’s perennial air of elitism, especially when he saw that they were serving ‘Twitter Ice Cream’ for breakfast and brunch, which raised more than a few eyebrows even from the regulars. Needless to say, Silena – ever the daredevil – ordered a double scoop. _(“So, what does it taste like?”;”Pretention.”_ ) They had discussed the whole Jason Thing, with Nico groaning every once in a while, _“Why am I even talking about this to you again?”_ To which Silena replied with, “Oh please, honey, I Birth of Venus.”

“Look, it’s not like I can do anything about it. He’s leaving because Jupiter is a self-righteous prat and Jason is his only successor.” Nico blows on his drink and takes considerable sips, indeed tasting perhaps _Roma’s_ trademark tang of pretentiousness; apparently their drinks are no exception.

“I’m not saying you should seduce him with your nuddy-pants into staying or rigging his damn flight or anything,” Silena says exasperatedly. “I’m just saying that you have to savor whatever time you have left with him before he zooms off to Mariachi-a-gogo land.”

“He’s going to Europe, not Mexico,” Nico points out, inwardly judging her recent Georgia Nicolson obsession. Silena gives a blasé wave of her hand and mutters, “Whatever.” She spoons a hefty amount of Twitter into her mouth and tells him, “While you’re here stuck in Hamburger-a-gogo land and he’s across the country in, say, Frogs-legs and Lederhosen, at least you have loads of good memories with him. And I’m not just talking about the sex.”

“ _Silena!_ ”

And so that is how he finds himself buying a legal pad a moment later and wondering just exactly how did Silena manage to trick him into actually considering activity planning. Alas, it can only be left as one of the world’s best unsolved mysteries, tacked right up next to the _Black Dahlia_. Except with much less blood and guts spilled about.

He clutches the store-bought items in one hand and a plate of home-made cannoli’s in the other as he places both on the breakfast counter, patting the front of his jeans in search of his phone. He presses ‘1’ for speed dial, and in a few rings Jason Grace’s voice greets him from the other end of the line.

_“Hello there, beautiful.”_

Nico rolls his eyes good-naturedly as he pictures Jason smiling deviously while talking to him. “Hey fuck-face.”

_“Sweet. And not that I don’t absolutely adore the sound of your voice, but perhaps you could enlighten me as to why you’re calling me while I’m in the middle of one of my lecture classes?”_

“Oh, crap, right. ‘M sorry. It’s just that – d’you think you could come over later? Like, right after that lecture, if you can.”

_“Babe, I’d fly out of the window right now and get to you if I could. But sadly I can’t, so yes, I think I can make a mad drive on Tempest. How does thirty minutes sound?”_

“Like a really crafty pizza delivery deal. Okay, I’ll leave you to whatever woefully boring lesson Ye Old Bespectacled professor has for you.”

_“Why I took Political Science, I will never know. Well, see you later then.”_

“See you.”

_“And Neeks?”_

“Yeah?”

_“I love you.”_

“I love you, too.”

 

Nico was only starting on his eighth cannoli when the door to his apartment unlocked and in came his favourite blond, fiddling with his own set of keys. Jason’s lips stretch into a wide grin the moment he saw the young man dressed in black and the fact made Nico’s heart swell. Nico asks Jason about how his day went and went about on feeding him all of the cannoli’s left, which made Jason look like an enthusiastic squirrel for a moment.

After coaxing Nico into fetching him a glass of water and forcing down chewed-up bits of numerous Sicilian pastries, Jason asks, “So what was so urgent that you had to ask me to come here? Not that I mind, of course.  I mean I come over here every day anyway; just curious.” Nico bites his lip and surreptitiously fingers the binding of the legal pad he held behind him. “Well,” he starts, “I have an idea.” Jason raises an eyebrow up at him and says, “And what would that be?”

Nico heaves a breath and then promptly slams the legal pad on the dinner table. On the space above, just before where all the lines start, were the words _‘N and J’s Bucket Llist’_ written in loopy cursive with sparkles and hearts dotting the script. Jason raises another eyebrow. “I – that’s not, err – no it’s – Silena,” Nico stuttered out as an explanation. The blond formed an ‘O’ with his mouth and agreed that that one name was a sufficient answer.

Nico gave him a crash course of the things Silena and he talked about (well, mostly Silena talked; Nico complained) and the dark-eyed teen felt a bit skittish. It sounded silly, even to his own ears. Hell, bucket lists are one of the things he was sure he was never going to do in his whole life, but then his boyfriend’s parents arranged some sort of conspiracy that kept their own son from his freedom and all of that went to hell.

Jason nods through Nico’s ramblings and points to the first line, “So what does number one say?” Nico looks down at the page and feels his cheeks heat up. Silena had stolen the papers from him right after he bought it and jotted down a few things, with the instructions to not read it yet and that he could thank her later. Now that he’s seen what exactly she’s written, though, there’d be no need for showing gratitude for a while.

Once again he settles for a simple answer, “Silena.” The blond chuckles at the sanguine blooming in Nico’s cheeks and takes the pad of paper from him. “Number one,” Jason starts, “adopt a pet and name it after your combined names.” He smiles.  “Two, make love in a public place – preferably an amusement park.” Nico hides his face in his hands and bumps his forehead against the table, muttering out something that sounded like, _why-y-y._ Jason’s starting to laugh as he reads on, “Three, re-enact the spaghetti scene from _‘Lady Is a Tramp’_. Four, have either one of you do a strip tease to _‘Sexy and I Know It’_.” Jason stops from reading for a while to shoot Nico a saucy grin, and the dark-haired boy just _looks_ at him. “Didn’t say anything. Okay, where was I – right; five, buy a promise ring and wear it until you get officially bonded.” Here, both young men looked especially alarmed, if not hopeful.  “Six, include personal kinks and/or fetishes in bed.  And lastly, it seems, seven, write a love song.”

It takes a whole minute for the both of them to really grasp the whole situation, and then suddenly Nico goes, “No, no I – I can’t – I am _so done_ with her. Just no, nope. We –“ Nico reaches over to tear the piece of paper from its binding, “- are going to ignore this bull, and we –“ he crumples it and does a perfect three-pointer shot to the dustbin, “- are going to make another one. A proper one.” Jason only looks at him with this dumb fond look on his face that has Nico scowling at him, “ _What?_ ”

The blond gives him an easy smile and brushes the obsidian-eyed boy’s knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “You actually want to do this?” Nico then turns redder than a Valentine card and dithers away, “Well – I – yeah but only if you… you know, wasn’t really my first choice, either but I, err don’t know, you know?”

Jason smile grows and once again puts the dark-eyed boy’s earth at ease.

“I know.”

. . .

They started out small, like getting coffee every lunch no matter their schedules or preparing dinner for the other every night until their 30 days come to a close. And then the bigger things happened, like taking a trip to monuments and going on short vacations to places their pockets would allow. They don’t talk about the issue at hand, however, and they don’t make a proper written bucket list but instead just set on doing something together every day. Sometimes, Nico would revert back to the insecure shit he was and would often ask Jason, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Because it still sounds ridiculous, getting ice cream at _Il Laboratorio del Gelato_ and going on try-hard dates at fancy restaurants that admittedly, neither really have the taste for.

It seems like sometimes they were getting desperate, like on one Monday when they were just sitting around watching TV sitcoms when suddenly Jason started getting antsy because he said he forgot to get a reservation at some pretentious restaurant with the run-of-the-mill obscure name. Nico wanted to tell him to forget about it, he doesn’t really want to go anyway, and that they could just spend the whole day bunking out and watching a solid three seasons of _How I Met Your Mother._ But he didn’t, because Jason was _trying_ , quite hard at that, and  – however much they’ve had an unspoken agreement of never talking about it –  he was  also leaving, so Nico swallowed down his objection, and he smiled for Jason reassuringly; dressed up for him; and pretended to enjoy the food that was perhaps so complex it almost tasted like cardboard.

But it’s not like Nico dreads every minute they spent together planning and going out, no. Nico loved it a lot actually, loved whatever had to do with Jason. But what he didn’t hold appreciation for is that he knew they were both just trying to savor something that would have to be cut short in the end. In a month, Jason leaves for Europe and he won’t return for a long time, it seems, even though Jason himself tries to deny the fact. Nico knows, though. The same way he knows Jason’s coffee order and how he takes it. Nico knows that whatever’s coming is going to put a strain in their relationship and he feels sort of hopeless, and then he’s just _angry_ ; because you know what, there’s an _After_ in his life, and with it comes a _Before_. He hates his Before, hates it like one would hate a person. To him it is quite animated, and could just run and slam back to him any time and he’ll be the poster boy for sad gay kid with the dead everyone and the might-as-well dead mind again.

And then After?

After… After is life interwoven with Jason’s. Without knowing it, his After has been creeping up on him, and one day just rushes in out of nowhere and suddenly he’s no longer the same person and he _loves_ it. Because for once he has a reason to go on, has a reason to fight for something real and something for himself.  He gets to keep the boy and the life and the future and the light, things he’s never had and now that he does he intends to hold on to it as long as he can. But it’s entirely selfish, he thinks, to hold on to the one person who you could live a thousand lives and still not deserve. They do say that if you love someone you should set them free. And it’s not fair, but love shouldn’t be anyway. It’s a cosmic rule.

So 19 days in their countdown on a Thursday he decides to call Jason again in the middle of his classes and asks him to come over as fast as he can. Only this time, there were no good notes in the goodbyes. (But as always, they still tried.)

Nico looks at him with apologetic eyes that has Jason worrying and questioning if he’s done something wrong. Nico assures him that no, he’s perfect, but their lives certainly aren’t. He then just go in for the kill and tells all his musings to Jason, who looks like the kind of sad that’s still trying not to be sad and just a little crestfallen, but in the end nods anyway. That night, dinner prepared by Nico was spent in a pensive silence with only the sound of cutlery on ceramic filling the air.

They also end up doing what they’ve been veering away from all month and talk about Europe on a Saturday. They’re in Central Park watching the water ripples in the lake and their breaths were coming out in puffs of smoke. The last time they were here, Nico recalls, was for a really cheesy vespa tour and they made a meal out of corn dogs and zeppole after.

“It just wasn’t us, you know?” Nico says. “All the suit-and-tie dinners, the forty-dollar ice creams, the bungee jumping…” the dark-haired boy trails off and chuckles. “No man should ever try bungee jumping ever, gods.” He feels a sense of accomplishment when he gets a smile out of Jason.

“Yeah, I know and it’s alright, really. But just what are we then?” Jason asks, lips twitching upwards resulting in the pretense of his trademark scar disappearing. And with that thought in mind, Nico couldn’t help but to swipe his thumb over the area, catching the imprint of Jason’s opaque scar and lovely smile in the swirl of his thumbprints, noting that this was the first genuine smile the blond has given him all day. (Which Nico feels guilty about. Like, he’s supposed to be the brooding-type one in their relationship after all, what the fuck Jay.)

He pretends to look thoughtful for a moment, if only to amuse Jason and keep that smile going for a little longer, and after a moment says, “We,” he pauses and grins, “ _we are the earth and sky / You and I. We are Heaven and Hell / Although why / The Fates will never tell. Dark and light mixes under our skin / as no one ever told us this kind of love was a sin. Beauty and the Beast by all means / although to question your beauty would border on extremes. We are black and white / Ying and yang / Dark and light. But darling / If you think we stop there / You’ve got another thing coming / We are all and nothing.”_

Jason stares at him disbelievingly for a moment before releasing a peal of laughter that had an old couple passing by turning their heads, and not soon after Nico follows with his own reserved chuckles. “Where’d you quote that from, Romeo?” Jason remarks good-naturedly. The younger man beside him shrugs and says, “Silena, actually. She had this Ling assignment that she finished in about five minutes before the deadline and it was about writing a poem in English and translating it on-the-spot in different languages. I think that answers your question, though.”

“Well, not quite.” The obsidian-eyed teen raises an eyebrow. “Okay well,” Nico starts, “think of it like this: we’re in stark contrast with each other like the poem says, black and white; Heaven and Hell; dark and light. It’s always been like that for us. We’re pure, concentrated elements that when mixed, forms a compound represented by a grey area. And that’s us, we’re the Inbetweens.” He turns to face Jason and takes his gloved hand, running his index finger over the strip skin between the hems of Jason’s glove and sleeve.

“And inbetweens are…they’re like – like lazy mornings when you just can’t be bothered to get up and start your day. They’re coffee without much of the buzz and hearing you beating eggs for breakfast and all those Sloppy Joes that we had to give out to the neighbors because I made too much.” Jason and he smile at the memory. “And inbetweens are fine because they even out the big things. Like going on dates to five-star restaurants, which was a really stupid idea of ours but you know what, everyone deserves to taste at least one baked snail platter with raspberries and ganache at least once in their life.” They start laughing and Nico looks up at Jason with sappy adoration brimming in his eyes.

“In the end we need both, and that’s what the full poem was talking about, if you ever decide to read all of its parts. Sometimes we’re unified grey areas and sometimes we’re on our own. Sometimes it’s all at once. And I think the Fates think we’ve had too many inbetweens, and that’s why I – I think it’s a good idea if we just stop all this – “ Nico gestures vaguely at the air between them, “ – and just _be._ ”

Jason looks curiously at him for a second. “…was that a break-up line?”

“ _Shit,_ oh gods it did sound like that,” exclaims Nico. “I just meant the not-so-bucket list,” he says vehemently. “We’re not meant for puppy-adopting or class rings and all that crap. We’re meant for… subtle. And sometimes we’re not. We give and take, yeah?”

“As much as that makes sense,” Jason stops for a moment to give him and Nico time to snicker because really, it didn’t make much sense. Nico said it in a way that said he was grappling for the right words and ended up with his very own inbetween; neither bad nor great. But it’s all they had, and to some extent they did get what the other is saying, and it’s enough. “I just wanted to clarify a few things: one, so no more grand gestures?”

“I say we wing it, like we always do.”

“Hm, right, sounds good to me. And two, what’s going to happen when I’m gone?” Jason looks at him in the eye. “What are you and I to do then?”

Nico purses his lips because well, here’s the question he’s been dreading. The question he hoped would never come across them, but now it has, and they have to deal with it. “We stay in touch,” Nico says firmly. “We’ll email each other every day, call the other whenever we can and make sure you get a roaming simcard. Skype is a godsend, anyway. And we’ll wait.”

Jason nods and licks his lips. “What do you usually do when I’m gone?” He asks.

“Wait for you to come back.” Nico knows the blond caught on the Spongebob reference when he throws his head back in a laugh, the dark-haired teen laughing along with him, and then suddenly Jason’s lips were on his, warm and soft and wonderful. “Gods, I love you,” Jason whispers in his ear and nips at the shell of it, sending warm sensations down Nico’s body, and he figures if they kept this up there would be no need for scarves and coats anymore. Jason then touches his lips lightly to the tip of Nico’s nose, on both of his eyelids, and then back to his mouth and Nico feels Jason grinning madly into the kiss. “I love you –“ kiss, “I love you –“ kiss, “ _I love you_ –“ kiss.

Both are eternally grateful that not much people had actually seen the spectacle, and thanked the gods for the leaves that shielded them. But even if they’d gained quite a crowd yet again neither would have given a flying fuck. They had bigger fish to fry now, like downloading all the seasons of _Sherlock_ and _Merlin,_ popcorn grocery shopping, and maybe – _just maybe_ – have a go at a last rare show of grandeur. The worst is yet to come, anyway.

. . .

The photo copy of the plane ticket was faxed to him on Sunday and Nico held it up to the dim, yellow kitchen lights with slightly trembling hands.

It was dated three days from now, flight 176 bound to London, UK at the London Heathrow Airport. Passenger name was listed under Jason Grace. 

Nico puts down his mug of coffee and worries his bottom lip. There’s a constricting in his chest, and not the good kind. He looks forlornly at the piece of scratchy paper before him and closes his tired eyes. Resolutely, he then goes to crumple it in his hands and the copy ended up somewhere he would surely stumble upon and would have to clean up later. (It reminds him of Jason’s purple shirt, another thing that belongs to the blond and the prickling in his eyes is there again.)

Nico tugs his cracked aviator jacket from the coat rack and leaves for a spot of gelato in hopes of drowning himself in calories and nothing hurts.

Maybe then things’ll look better, he thinks.

Sound.

. . .

“Are you sure you don’t want me to see you off?”

_“I’ll be gone at two in the morning, and I know I’ve done enough damage, Neeks.”_

“ _Ja_ son.”

_“I’m serious. I wish for no tears because this certainly isn’t goodbye. I’ll be back and bothering you before you know it.”_

“You better, Jason fucking Grace, or I might just fly to Russia or whatever and drag your ass back here.”

Silence.

_“Neeks, are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”_

“Jay… we’ve gone through this before. I have my classes and Dr. Hyden to worry about and Jupiter would fillet me for even setting foot in a space where he exists in.”

 _“Yes, but are you a hundred percent sure? Just think about it one last time, without the work and without my dad, what do_ you _want?”_

“…”

_“Neeks?”_

“Honestly, I just want you to be here. With me. In Manhattan. This is all I’ve ever known, Jay. Italy was a vague sweet dream but New York is my reality. It’s what I see outside my window every day I wake up and it’s the last thing I set my eyes on at night when you’ve gone home. And I want to have that with you, too. I want to get up in the morning to you and go to bed knowing you’re next to me and I just want a non-complicated life but I don’t have that, and now I don’t have you.”

 _“Nico, you will_ always _have me –“_

“Not in the way I want to. One day, maybe, when we know what to do with our lives and you’re back here and we’re both finally home.”

_“I… okay. Yeah. Okay. The only one we’ve ever known, right?”_

“’Course, Jay.”

_“Can you do me two last favours before I leave, though?”_

“What is it?”

There was a knock at the door.

_“Open up, beautiful.”_

Nico’s lips stretch into an impossibly wide smile as he trips over his own feet to open the apartment door, and there, right in front of him, was Jason _fucking gorgeous_ Grace.

They stare at each other for a while before Nico surges up to capture Jason’s lips in his own and the kiss is sloppy, all enthusiasm and raw emotion singing through their veins. And maybe, Nico figures, this is more than okay. It means something different, somehow. There’s no finesse and no teasing of any form and it’s just them, their hearts, and the world.

And yet it somehow feels like a goodbye.

Nico brushes the thought aside and comes up for air, skating his fingers over Jason’s high cheekbones slowly, affectionately. “You’re a dork, I don’t know why I love you,” Nico remarks, eyes shining in the yellow light of the 12:00 moon filtering through his venetian blinds. Jason gives him a blinding grin and says, “Because I was the one who stayed up with you all night for two days looking for the missing Jupiter card from your _Romanus Expansion Deck._ America would be offended if you didn’t love me.”

Nico couldn’t help but laugh and certainly had an equally cheeky comeback at the tip of his tongue, but thought better of it. Jason was right, he thinks. As fanciful as the thought was, he could almost hear Silena’s voice in his head telling him, “Nico, _darling_ , if ever there would be anyone willing to sacrifice sweet slumber to become a super sleuth for you and deal with your burning passion for those cards, you listen to me well: marry them.” Which she actually _did_ tell him when he told her about the whole missing Mythomagic card fiasco.

“Yeah,” the dark-haired teen agrees, “I would have disappointed too many if I didn’t.”

Jason smiles down at him and brushes his bangs away from his eyes. “I had to see you,” the blond whispers. “I know I put up a whole front about not wanting to make anything worse than it already is but it seriously physically pains me knowing that the last time I would talk to you on New York soil was through a phone,” he chuckles without mirth and moves to stroke Nico’s face. “And you deserve so much more than a phone call, baby, _so much_ more.” Jason places a chaste kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead, speaking volumes of his feelings, and Nico knows he wasn’t just talking about the phone call. 

Sometimes words can never be enough, it seems, and actions are your only refuge then. But Jason always makes sure to boot his shows of affection with words, because Nico likes to be reassured like that. Nico needs to be reminded that certain things are okay to do, especially in their relationship, and perhaps someone should constantly tell him that he’s loved, just in case he forgets and caves into himself again.

And Nico knows that Jason’s endlessly worried that when he’s gone Nico’ll push the world away again, especially since he’s been doing so well now. (It’s all Jason’s fault, really, cheery bastard.) But he owes the blond that much, and he has to try to function in a zone without Jason and deal with everything that comes with it.

In lieu of a response, Nico nuzzles into Jason’s shirt and asks, “What’s the second one?”

“What?” Jason says dumbly, a dazed look in his eyes as he stares at the framed picture of him and Nico on the dark-haired teen’s side table.

“The second favour, idiot.”

“Oh, right that. Well, just – just wait for me, yeah?” Jason looks down at him in a serious manner. “New York is a pretty big place with a lot of pretty interesting people. I don’t know, maybe you might – might meet some stranger and you’ll wake up one day and realize that you don’t… don’t love me anymore or something,” the blond says the last part quietly. “Gods, when I put it that way I sound impertinent.” He opens his mouth to say more but Nico beats him to the punch, “You are fucking stupid if you think I’ll ever cheat on you _or_ stop caring about you.”

Jason sighs and shakes his head, a sad smile playing on his lips. “I guess I really am, aren’t I?” Nico nods along with him jokingly even though Jason’s words struck a chord in him. “Yes, you certainly are. However, that is why I’m here. So don’t go prancing around Europe for too long, ’m afraid you might just go barmy.” The blond chuckles and presses his lips to Nico’s knuckles, saying, “Promise. Same goes to you, I’d very much like to go home to a sane boyfriend.” Jason pauses and looks thoughtfully at the same picture of the two of them as he did a while ago.

It was taken the day Nico started working at Zane Clark’s and they had celebrated with nachos and smoothies taken-out from Rosie’s as a final fuck-you to the place. In the picture, Nico was holding up his pomegranate drink and smiling brightly as the two of them leaned on the railings of a closed-off fountain, while Jason had his arms wrapped around the official ex-waiter tightly and had left his smoothie on the ground for a while, beaming at the camera with cheese sauce still stuck to the corner of his smile. They had asked some woman whom every article on her body just about screamed ‘flower child’ and she, after snapping the picture, had called them beautiful. Nico had blushed all the way to his ears and had stuttered a thank-you before he started yammering on in Italian, which he must have not realised then.

Nico saw Jason’s smile growing, and the blond goes, “But in all honesty sane or not I’d still come back to you.”

The dark-haired teen shrugs. “I’m already out of my mind anyway, dating you and all.” Jason looks back at him, smile still in place and laughs, and it’s probably the last time, Nico thinks, the last time he’ll ever hear that laugh in person in an awfully long time.

“Quite right.”

It wasn’t supposed to be a goodbye but it sure as shit felt like it. But it felt pure, somehow. Right. Like the stars happened to have aligned that night to see them off and cross themselves to either intertwine or disperse their fate tails. They relished in the simple act of touching lips and holding the other close like the sun would finally collapse on the earth any minute, taking advantage of the last bit of infinity they had, and they had made love that night.

They had done all these under bajillions of stars and thinking about numbers and distance made Nico feel so small. From then on their distance would span too far but the frustration lied in the fact that they were still under the same sky. But if it was daylight in Manhattan, it would have been night time already in Europe. Despite all that it would be something they could live with, the distance. It would be something temporary and you know what, Nico’s come around to the fact that there’s more to life than their own little bubble they had built and spent this night and every other night in. Like the first snowfall in December, or the feel of clean new sheets on freshly-showered skin, or even just enjoying a cup of warm coffee in the middle of a rainstorm.

Their relationship was relatively new and all-encompassing, but there must be cracks in every surface to let their hearts breathe a little. So they’re going to be okay, they’ve got to be anyway. Not out of obligation, but out of trust. Like how Nico trusts Jason to stay beautiful (he doesn’t mean it in an aesthetical sense) and to come back; how Jason trusts Nico to remain faithful and, well, sane. Their trust wasn’t exactly based in so many words but in a nutshell – and to correlate with their ephemeral last moments – this was real and happening, and see, you don’t really get to have a say in what part the world should stop spinning in or where time should cease in midst of the whole universe’s dynamic. This is all you have and time won’t wait for you to gird your loins for the present.

 . . .

The digital clock on his bedside table blares at him, telling him it was four in the morning. It didn’t seem like four in the morning though, it didn’t seem like anything really, but he supposes it feels like it. It was cold in the apartment, the kind of cold that exists in the atmosphere that you just breathe and breathe and breathe in and can’t get rid of.

All was seemingly still but that was a lie because New York never was. Jason had left only a few minutes ago and he took all the warmth out of the room with him.

The Golden Boy who carried all the sun’s light in only the stretch of sunshine between his lips has now set in his part of the earth and now shines in another place and in another time. He takes comfort in the knowledge that Jason’s light hadn’t been burned out or anything, it’s just that it exists in a different place now. More importantly, it exists in a place where he wasn’t in.

He recalls their last conversation before Jason boarded the plane and the blond had called him in a haste. Jason sounded kind of sad and a little nervous, but tired more than anything. Even the way he said Nico’s name was kind of drawn out.

 _“Are you ready, Nico?”_ Jason had asked him.

“For what?”

There was a pause.

_“The future.”_

 

. . .

Hazel came around his apartment on Wednesday, taking him completely by surprise. She had donned a knowing smile and handed him a rather large box and declared a special delivery.

“So when did you decide to become a mail man,” Nico says jokingly but was otherwise extremely pleased to see his sister. Hazel rolled her eyes at him and handed him the box that was rather… animated. It shook and shuddered and he looks at it with bafflement before the box gave a loud –

_“Bark!”_

The golden-eyed girl laughs at his expression and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s an extension of him,” she says softly. “He came by my flat the other day and asked me to give this little guy to you after he left. Look inside, there’s a note.” There was a smile in her voice that calmed his breathing down, and Nico opens the hole-riddled box to find a small Labrador with a sleek black mane and the darkest eyes in puppy history. It barks at him again and abruptly pounces on his chest, effectively knocking him down the carpeted floor with his buckled knees.

Nico gives a loud yelp and a folded piece of paper flutters to his side and he scrambles to catch it before the Labrador could chew it up.

He unfolds the note with his index finger and in Jason’s scratchy handwriting were the writings:

_I’ve always really loved dogs, you know. And I’ve always really loved you. Hope this reminds you of me, ghost king, at least I got her black like all your clothes!_

_Silena actually got two things right in her bucket list, surprisingly._

_Be back soon. x_

_-Jason_

It brings a ridiculous smile to his face and he laughs before the black Lab snatches it out of his hands and proceeds to consume it. Now, normally he would get mad with any kind of canine that ate up things that were his (Percy and Annabeth had a little shitzhu named Bessie that had a penchant for gnawing everything in sight) but a flash of white caught his eye.

At base of the Lab’s collar hangs a single band of silver with a black stud in the middle. Nico takes it off of the puppy for a moment to take a minute and slide it on his ring finger. Taking it off once again, he checks the inside of the class ring and the initials _JG_ was carved on the side behind the stud in small, neat letters.

A smile graces his features.

He grins goofily down at the black menace and whispers, “How about Cerberus?” The Lab perks up at the name and wags its tail rapidly. Nico gets a slobbery kiss on the nose and giggles _(“Oh my gods, was that a -?”;”Hazel, don’t you_ dare. _”)_

“Yeah, I think I’ll keep you. _And_ this ring,” the dark-haired teen says. Hazel coos at them both and rattles on about the proper way of taking care of dogs and about how they should _absolutely_ go pet shopping later, and _Nico, are you even listening to me?_

When it was time for Hazel to visit their other friends, Nico brings out a shallow silver bowl that he normally uses for baking and filled it halfway with milk and set it in front of Cerberus. She looks at it curiously for a moment – could a dog even look curious? – and then puts her paw on the cusp of it, as if she were testing it out, and then simply brings it _down._   Milk ran everywhere on his tiles and bled through this pathetic square of a rag he’s been leaving lying on the floor for weeks because no, the energy it takes to bend over and pick it up could be applied to more useful things like posting on Mythomagic forums and crushing dreams.

Nico scowls down at his puppy who only looks at him with her big, black eyes that don’t really do much to deter his annoyance. After cleaning the mess up with a mop and Cerberus occasionally attacking the strands of it like it was her life’s goal, he decided that milk was not for dogs. He doesn’t even know why he gave her milk, it just seemed like the thing any pet owner would do at the moment. Or did that only apply to cats - ?

Ugh.

He had little to none knowledge about petdom but that was okay, he figures. He didn’t know jackshit about relationships but he’s powered through the courting stage and is still going insanely strong with Jason. Maybe it’ll be just the same with Cerberus.

Sighing in resolution, he crouches down so that he could hold Cerberus by her muzzle gently and says, “Listen here cub, you are now stuck with me for the rest of your life on this earth, so let’s make a deal: I feed you, give you baths, and maybe even train you. Maybe. Not going to promise anything. While you remain docile and don’t go about spilling milk all over the place and try not to chew on my clothes. Are we clear?”

Cerberus gives a happy little yip and half-licked, half-slobbered her way on his cheek and Nico groans in frustration. “I like animals, really I do,” he proclaims to the air and the microwave he’s facing. “But I never said I wanted to take care of them or become their parent-type thing or whatever.” When the microwave didn’t seem to be all that responsive, he turns to his coffee maker and says, “And I am a nice person, I swear I am. And I love my boyfriend, my sister, and my friends but I may just have to kill Jason when he gets back.”

The coffee maker doesn’t say anything, but thankfully Cerberus fills the awkward silence between man and machine with her own enthusiastic barks.

. . .

For the most of it, he lives.

At first he expects a routine to come out of it, much like his Before and nothing like his After, but surprisingly, there wasn’t any that surfaced. Sure he regularly went to uni, brushed his teeth, fed and bathed his dog, ate his cereal, and listened to Silena talk from hours on end but the whole thing didn’t exactly fall upon the category of ‘routine’.

Because some days, it’s actually pleasant. Some days he finds time to relax and just sit around watching _Sherlock_ while eating microwaveable buttered popcorn with Cerberus on his lap; and then some days he goes out with Silena to go walk Cerberus and to _Roma_ (which is now officially their favourite place to be), sometimes Annabeth calls him up because he’s the only one who appreciates and gushes about both history and art as much as she does, and then there’s those quiet moments with Hazel when she comes over to keep him company and play with his pet (which became frequent because she was on break), and all in all it’s very much lovely.

What does become a recurring thing, however, were his and Jason’s Skype calls. The first time Jason called, it was two days after he left and Nico proudly presented Cerberus to her ‘dad’ and Jason played the part well with her barking at him through the screen quite well.

 The blond’s calls sometime came in late in the middle of the night and Nico would roll out of bed to try and decipher the words blaring at him from his computer, but Jason’s name combined with the words “Incoming Call” was enough to shake the sleep out of his system. But sometimes the calls came early in the morning, and when that happens, Nico struggles with trying to be all chipper and amicable because if Nico di Angelo was anything, he was _not_ a morning person. He’d even get missed calls in the afternoon the first few weeks in, but quickly advices Jason to not bother because he’s still in class by then.

Not to say Jason doesn’t get a taste of his own medicine, though, because he does. Nico’s calls always come in arbitrarily and most times in the wrong time but he’s always greeted with a warm smile and blush-worthy comments from his boyfriend. And for the most part, they make it work. It was crazy, but they did. Instead of letting the distance push them to grow apart, it only made them count their days and have something to look forward to (but considering the amount of video calls and texts they exchange, Silena would have taken a personal offense if they grew distant), because Jason would come back, if not tomorrow then someday. And while Nico hangs on to that mindset, he also knows that there’s more to life than waiting.

He learns the full truth of this one when Hazel buys him his second DSLR camera. The first was from Bianca, which he used with much zeal and later preserved as a sort of relic. And it’s funny, really, how passion strikes you out of nowhere and fits in between the gaps of your fingers like it belonged there all this time and you just didn’t know.

It was like learning how to be alive all over again, and with every snap of a picture he’s able to capture a piece of life in a moment that could last forever. He hasn’t exactly been filled with this much fervor since Jason, and it’s another experience altogether. Mostly he takes pictures of everything candidly wonderful, like a child’s eye lighting up after having been given a balloon or people caught mid-laugh. He never asks permission, though, except for when he takes shots of his friends. He has a picture of every one. Well, almost everyone:

Hazel with a crown made out of paper flowers and a small smile on her face taken at Times Square on New Year’s Eve, an hour before the countdown; Silena making a kissy-face at the lens while sitting next to her long-term boyfriend Charlie in Café Roma dressed up as hipsters back in November; Percy and Annabeth in Montauk when everyone had taken an excursion, posing as pirates in a battered boat by the shore donning eye patches made out of dried seaweed and baring their teeth. He had a lot more like with Leo Valdez (a pyromaniac acquaintance of his), Frank (big, burly, cuddly Frank), and his few measly friends from college and Roma’s head barista Will. Those are the ones he doesn’t tack up on his newly put-up photo board where every good shot he deems ends up at, but rather, fits them all in a small photo album he keeps in his messenger bag.

He doesn’t have a photo of Jason, however, as he’s planning on snapping the blond’s first photo with his camera when he comes to pick Jason up from the airport. Nico has plenty of pictures with and of Jason in his phone, though, but it’s not the same. There’s a sort of magic that can only be captured by a certain sort of device, he believes, and as he looks at the recently-developed picture of a woman holding her baby while taking a stroll in the park, eyes brimming with love and care, he smiles at how true he finds the statement.

Nico grabs a red thumbtack from his drawers and tacks up said photo and takes a step back, marveling a little at the sight before him. The picture board was a conglomerate of random faces, events, and moments. It was only filled halfway like a collage but Nico was certain he’d be taking and adding a lot more soon. Cerberus would sometimes tear into his reject stash and chew on the photo papers to her heart’s content until Nico catches her in the act and throws her her lucky carrot squeaky toy. He often uses the university’s dark room when developing pictures, along with other photography students. (So maybe pre-Med wasn’t exactly his niche, we all have our trial-and-error moments.)

His whole body perks up at the tune of Skype’s tell-tale of an incoming call. Striding over to his computer desk, he clicks accept and Jason’s slightly grainy image toggles into focus.

_“Neeks!”_

“Hey, Jay.” Nico gives a grinning Jason a tired smile after the long day’s stress, while the other was practically bouncing in his seat.

 _“So guess who has good news. Like, really,_ really good _good news.”_

“I’ll take a gamble and say you.”

 _“Right-o, dearest special friend of mine. Care to take another gamble?”_ Jason’s camera lags a bit and him switching positions are really doing a number on Nico’s ADHD; plus –

“Oh god _special friend_ , Jesus, who are you, my dad? Say it with me, ‘boyfriend’. You can do it baby, _boyfriend._ ”

_“Nico.”_

“Yes?”

_“I come bearing ground-breaking news and you are, quite frankly, being stroppy.”_

Nico gives him a bewildered stare. “ _Stroppy_. Next thing you know we’ll be having tea and crumpets every lunch.”

 _“I –_ what _… I may have to kill you.”_

“I sense a ‘but’ in that statement.”

 _“But unfortunately I’m sort of mildly in love with you so no. Speaking of infatuation and_ special friends,” Nico notices that Jason makes sure to add emphasis to the last part. _“I’m coming home.”_

 

If you wanted to, you could have heard a pin drop from the kitchen. Or the bathroom. Or about three feet below in the silence the room succumbed to. The pause was brief, though, because in .03 seconds Nico’s face splits into a grin that might have hurt just a little and he’s practically screaming that was this real, was this really happening, because _Jason Grace if you are shitting me right now, I fucking swear -_

“I’m leaving in about a week because dad apparently angered some real powerful politician, but you know, he says it’s because he has more pressing business to deal with in America, so yeah, I’m four months early.” Skype-Jason looks at his screen sheepishly and rubs the back of his neck, like whatever he did he did not fully intend to reduce Nico into a sputtering mess. The dark-haired teen was scrambling for the appropriate words to properly express his complete elation and disbelief, but hopefully a simple: “I- oh gods, oh fucking hell this is – this is wow. _Wow._ It’s – I cannot right now I –“ would suffice.

 

The rest of the next three hours was spent with them arranging plans for when Jason’s going to come back and Nico has this manic grin, the kind of grin that looks absolutely indelible and Jason mirrors this. They’re excited, happy, and most of all fucking _nervous_ , because you know what, it has been three months already and the amount of time they spent apart should have been illegal. Really.

Jason excuses himself to go to the bathroom for a minute and Nico waves him away, he had a few more pictures to tack up anyways.

When Jason returns and gives him a winning smile, Nico doesn’t hesitate to snap a picture of Skype-Jason, however bad the resolution.

. . .

Nico dreams about the future. Isn’t that what dreamers do? He thinks about his life after college and Jason’s return and truth be told, he’s frightened. He’s still stuck in that obscure grey area between being a teenager and being an adult, and has been juggling finding someone else to kill the spiders in the cupboard and learning how to deal with taxes quite horrendously. But without all that, perchance he could see it.

 Fast forward and he’s twenty-five in that picture painted in his jumbled mind, still donning his black ensemble but this time with a camera around his neck, fitted safely on the palm and gaps of his hands. And maybe, maybe Jason’s there, too. With all the days always ending with him setting a cup of coffee down at the table in front of Nico and asking about how his day was and what went on with it. And Nico’d answer with a sleepy grin, standing up for a sound kiss before anything else.

It was so grand that for one heart-breaking moment Nico hangs on to the thought of the possibility of it being real. But see, he’s still so scared of what’s going to happen next; that usually happens when you’re a jaded college student that’s all sorts of cliché wrapped up in sweaters and beanies. So for now, he ignores the prodding of the universe telling him to look forward but not once giving him a heads up. But he’s okay with that, really.

. . .

“So what’d you get for your bio finals?” Silena asks him one day for another spot of lunch at Roma, who now offers Twitter cobbler ice cream which she immediately jumped at the opportunity of ordering.

Nico looks at her drily and goes to twirl the miniature umbrella in his kumquat cooler, huffing. She raises her eyebrows and laughs, “Poor baby. Oh Biology, thou art a heartless bitch.”

“You’ve been watching way too many episodes of Big Bang,” Nico points out and Silena waves him away, “One can never get enough of the genius that is Sheldon Cooper.” When Nico doesn’t respond and continued to look despondently at his Belgium waffles, Silena clears her throat and says, “Okay what is up with you? I thought your superman is already boarding the plane back to ‘Murica as we speak.”

Nico cringed.

Slowly, her eyes widened in pity and asked him, “What happened?” Nico considers answering this, since Silena’d find a way to worm out an answer out of him anyway. But as stated earlier by she herself, he’s just went through his bio finals for the semester; his brain has long ceased to function properly a few minutes right after he exited the testing sites, yet apparently not too exhausted to keep reminding him of how utter shit his week has come to unfold in the end. But after all, Silena was as perceptive as she was gorgeous.

“He’s not coming back,” he states simply. “Not any soon, anyway.” He tells her all about the conversation he and Jason had the other day, when the blond had called him up in the middle of the night and spoke with urgency as if something’s gone wrong. Which apparently, something had.

Jupiter might be ready to book it back to New York but he saw no reason to take his son with him. To him, this was apparently what Jason said as ‘the perfect opportunity’ to get Jason into politics and all that crap that he wants to force onto his only son and Jason, well. He’s never really been given a chance to have a say in these things. The blond had apologized profusely and looked like he was in the brink of tears but just kept blinking it back, so Nico smiled at him kindly, told him it was all going to be fine; that _they_ were going to be fine. But Nico hated lying like this, because while this path would ensure Jason a prudential life it would just leave him miserable if it wasn’t what he’s always wanted. Jason Grace wanted to be someone worthwhile, and while he still doesn’t know what to do to be just that, he certainly doesn’t want to get involved in one of the many world-wide scams like politics.

He’s seen Jupiter and Jason on TV as well, since big-shot Grace senior’s early not!campaigning is apparently Very Important news to the public and they’ve been staging photo ops and promotional clips all month long these days. Jason still looks the same – blond and beautiful and just a little battered. He still looks the same as the day he left but Nico knows that these past few months has changed Jason in a lot of ways. Which, sort of made him sad, really. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo for character development and all but Jason just looks tired now. Weary. There’s still the same certainty in his gait and he oozes confidence and while he certainly does not blend in the crowd, he projects the impression of belonging anywhere he pleases to go. And all Nico wants to do is grab a blanket and bundle him up until the sun comes up, doing his best to protect Jason from reality and all its devils. So many people were expecting stoo much from Jason; things he himself is unwilling to do. There’s a lot of demands put on him and it’s awful, and Nico wonders sometimes, how Jason deals with all of it. How he could still stand on his own two feet even with the crushing pressure drilling him down.

But then again Nico’d be an absolute hypocrite if he said he already knew what he wanted to do in life, and wasn’t it only last week that he was sitting around his flat while contemplating about his life choices with a tub of Mint Bon-Bon nestled in his lap? Yeah. Right now, though, it’s just something they _live_ with. You go to school to find out what you want to do with the rest of your life and then you go to college to do something about that supposed ‘dream’ the whole department of education expects you to already have by then to follow through with. But do you really have one already? Are you secure enough about your own career? Own life? Well bah humbug then, almost-worst case scenario would be ripping the party chains off the wall and pouring the champagne down the drain because the congratulatory party’s over and you’ve got five years’ worth of regret in the form of ink on paper and it’s all going to boil down to the nine-to-five job for you.

And he sure as shit doesn’t want to end up like that. Not at all.

“Well,” Silena breathes out, a streak of Twitter across her chin that didn’t do much to ruin her made-up face, “that’s rough, buddy.” Nico rolls his eyes at her and offers a napkin, “How very empathic of you.”

She smiles at him sweetly, perfect pearly whites with canines smudged with red from her lipstick. “Oh honey, don’t be like that. Believe me, you’ll get through this. Jason Grace will swagger back into your life one way or another and you’ll breeze through this semester and find your purpose in life or some shit like that. It’s going to be alright, I know it. You’ll figure this out,” she pats him on the arm and stands to leave, “you always do.”

Nico finds himself never wanting to believe in something more than anything in that moment.

. . .

It’s May and summer’s just around the bend, inevitably making him a regular Twitter cone buyer at Roma (who now serves Instagram ice cream but Nico’s not nearly ready for that level of crazy). Silena tells him that she supports his recent life choices upon hearing about this new piece of information and suggested throwing a party with her block mates that are equally besotted with the infernal dairy-social media hybrid that even science cannot yet explain (‘science’ being this chem student, Jonah, Nico used to have classes with before he shifted).  

Nico was packing up his equipment after today’s free shoot and he chose aesthetics in people, even though he still had an acute case of social anxiety and still had to rehearse every McDonald’s order over his head for about five times before he’s satisfied he won’t mix up the number of chicken nuggets he wants again, much less ask strangers to pose for him like what the actual heck. But yeah, it’s over and done with and he’s successfully invited about five people to the studio, four of which were actually Silena’s friends from beauty school and the fifth being Silena herself. It was a good day.

There’s still about three or four people in the classroom and Sasha, a particularly tall girl who’s been a first year college student for five years and was notorious for shifting, was locking up the dark room and everyone else was grabbing their bags and making their way out of the classroom. Nico was always last to go out, but this time Dave, a rowdy red-head who was about a year his junior, was lingering as well. Nico only gives him a fleeting glance and adjusts the strap of his camera and stares helplessly at the abundance of items he has to carry back to his apartment for a second. He then moves to pass the dark room and into the dimly-lit hallway, when a hand shoots out to grab his elbow and sort of jostles him around. He narrows his eyes at the grinning face of Dave Henley, who’s holding up a fountain pen with _N.D.A_ engraved on the clip (because yeah, he’s _cheesy_ like that; don’t you judge him).

“You dropped this yesterday,” Dave says, handing over the pen. “At the nature shoot.” Nico nods his affirmative and pockets it with a quiet ‘thanks.’ He heads down the hall.

“So I still don’t get the objective of next week’s shoot, the one about stills and shit.” Dave slings his Reebok bag over his shoulders and falls into step with Nico, who’s long walked away from him. Nico doesn’t really know a lot of Dave Khan, just that he’s part of the Alphi Phi Omega frat and is pretty well-liked around campus – something about being a varsity member or whatever. Also, the guy wears beanies and hoodies over _plaid_ , and if that isn’t hipster enough then maybe he could tell you how Dave has these wide-frame glasses that he swears up and down were definitely _not_ hipster glasses when Laura Marlee (Nico’s partner for the Polaroid project last month) asked him about it.

Nico shrugs and his bag strap sort of slips from his shoulders. He immediately jerks to catch it with his forearm and it kind of hurts; plus, he’s still carrying about five different paper bags of all shapes, sizes, and heft of films and rolls and _so much_ photo paper that he almost drops all of them all at once. Almost, because suddenly about half of his shit was taken from him and was transferred to an admittedly more muscular arm and you know what maybe he’s starting to tolerate this Khan guy, what do you know.

Nico says his thanks again, and Dave babbles on about how frustrating their professor was and how vague Mr. Myer tends to address the topics and _it’s so not helping anyone._ Also there was some football talk in between but if Nico would be lying if he said that he was listening with rapt interest.

For the first time in months, he doesn’t go home alone. Doesn’t take the bus in solitude and doesn’t walk towards his street in silence. Dave was sort of like Percy with his endless talking, and in a way Nico has learned to appreciate it within a matter of minutes.

It’s a start.

. . .

“Holy shit.”

“ _I know_.”

“Praise the lawd, this _taste!”_

Nico should have known that acquainting Silena – ever-charming Silena – and Dave – ever-loquacious Dace –  was a bad idea. No, not just a bad idea. It’s the fucking _ship wreck_ of bad ideas. It’s July and a Sunday which meant it was one of the bi-weekly scheduled meet-up days with Silena at Roma. Nico asked if his new friend _(“- so this fucker”_ ) could come because Dave went to a frat party last night and woke up with a massive hangover and apparently as alleged ‘best bro’ he has to play nanny for the day.

The moment Silena laid eyes on Dave with his hand around Nico, she donned a horrified look on her face and Nico could quite literally see all the misinterpretations she was already formulating in her pretty little mind but immediately squashed it with one of his patented ‘this really isn’t what it looks like now hush’ glares. It’s a very effective glare, if he does say so himself. Surprisingly, it took only ten minutes to explain to Silena that no, Nico was not cheating on Jason and that Dave is just a leech that he lets worship the ground he walks on and gives the occasional pat on the back to when Dave does something right. Except, he said it in a less mean way because it’s _Dave_ , and what sick fuck would ever think of him as a leech. It’s just a metaphor, ‘swear.

“So he idolizes you?” Silena had asked him after Dave excused himself to go to the bathroom after spilling Instagram ice cream all over his good shirt that Nico had ‘accidentally’ ironed for him.

“It’s a scary thought but yes, apparently.”

It’d been a drunken confession one night after their finals a few months ago and Nico was nursing a bottle of Jack while Dave was already chugging down his second bottle of whiskey. He had told him that the first time he heard of Nico, they described him as the “brooding guy that’s sort of sexy and also crazy talented.” And the flush that went to Nico’s cheeks all but lasted for six seconds before Dave had let out a loud burping noise and scratched his bottom. And then, Dave had told Nico about how he’s sort of been aware of him, but not in a creepy stalker way. But more of in the ‘I-am-looking-at-a-legend-right-now-jesus-christina-how-are-we-even-breathing-the-same-air’ kind of way. Nico did not understand at first, because seriously, _why_ , and _what the actual frick_. Nico has never been looked up to by anyone. It’s a huge first for him, yet again.

Apparently he has some sort of reputation, unbeknownst to him. He gets that he’s an okay student, really he’s just as studious as the next insomniac guy who eats too much microwaveable dinners than the recommended amount. But he’s not that _special_ , okay. He’s not. It’s the first time he’s heard rumors about himself, crazy rumors. The kind that could land you on the top of the mill and maybe he actually has but just didn’t know. They were all surprisingly poetic, though. There’s this one about him being an orphan having climbed his way to a better life (warmer) and another about him dealing drugs to pay for his tuition (colder; trust fund) but not actually _taking_ them because, like, tortured artists only go as far as the lack of food and inspiration supply.   

In a nutshell, Nico’s sort of having the high school experience four years late and with a 50% off discount on the fun of it all. What a shock to the system.

“So Dave isn’t your boy toy but your what – _fan_?” Silena raises a delicate eyebrow at him. He scoffs. “Hey, don’t sell him short. It’s just that I’m apparently role model material and also, I have a solid theory that he was a dog in his past life because I sort of feel like aside from Cerberus, I’m taking care of another pup. Except less cute and more annoying.”

It was true. Dave was basically Nico’s sort-of charge, sort-of best friend. He really has bad taste in friends, just look at Silena. Anyone who wants to befriend her is either really confident or is just  asking for a self-esteem bruiser that’s up and running 24/7. Two guesses which category he falls into.

But Dave is _nice_ , and he can be awesome when he wants to, and he even has his own bouts of wisdom at times. They’re not exactly uncommon (because as much as Dave has shown, Nico knows he’s in fact really smart and is even more exceptional with a Nikon), but it’s further proof that they’re there blithering about in his thick jockey/artist skull. Plus, maybe Dave actually does think the sun shines out of Nico’s ass because it’s hero worship right there, Nico can see it clear as day. He knows that, he’s felt that, he _had_ that. Except he also just _had_ to delve a little further into the mix of emotions and awe for a certain green-eyed menace and fell in love but hey, there’s something to be said about finding out that you weren’t exactly on the straight and narrow at the tender age of ten. Something about having a good sense of self. Ace bragging rights right there.

Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that once upon a time on the first day of the second year of college Nico had defended this incoming-freshman from the most notorious terror teacher in campus, not-so-affectionately called as Mr. D. (D as in Dionysus, his pseudonym as a failed writer turned English Lit professor; or perhaps D as in Dick because that is, succinctly, him) on one of their high school’s orientation trips. It was a full-on verbal bitch slap argument that Nico won with his sharp tongue and quick wit and nifty arsenal of plagiarized comebacks from various sitcoms. He had felt like some sort of god that day, with triumph hopping him up on endorphins. Turns out it wasn’t just him who had, like, a moment there or some shit. (It’s the sort of thing that happens in the movies, and you know with his whole life being one big plot in an even more horrible version of a Nora Roberts novel, he’s already learned to accept miracles as they are. Like have you _seen_ Jason?)

“Oh my god, Nico baby, you have a _son_.” He looks at her bewilderedly and almost drops his spoonful of Twitter. “ _What._ ”

“I bet you take care of him too, don’t you? Like chicken soup and belly rubs on a flu season. You probably remind him to do his homework on a regular basis and he probably hangs around your apartment a lot and just watches you mother hen him, amiright?”

“I – “

“You feed him as well, I’d wager. And does his laundry for him –“

“Actually he does it for the both of us –“

“And you prolly read him bed time stories or something, oh my god you are a _mom –_ “

“Jesus, S, no and no!”

Silena bites her bottom lip, looking profoundly pensive. “You’re right, I shouldn’t bring gender roles into this, how sexist of me. Let me rephrase that: you are a _dad_ –“ And that’s about it for Nico’s bullshit-taking abilities from Silena for the day, seeing she’s already reached her quota already. He rolls his eyes and lets his head loll from the backrest of his seat and sees Dave heading towards them with his ever-present dopey smile that completely warrants a hair tousle from Nico. Which, he does right after the red-head settles in his place right next to him. Dave pretends to lean away from the touch but there’s a laugh bubbling out of him, and if this was what being a parent to the boy felt like Nico really wouldn’t mind.

. . .

Halfway through the week, Silena asks to borrow Dave for the weekends and Nico was terrified at first because this was _Silena_ they were talking about, who knows what she’s planning on doing to the poor boy.

But come Monday and she’s dropped Dave off to Nico’s, his pseudo-charge was returning to him with a new haircut and has apparently taken to jokingly calling him ‘dad’(or so he thinks?). The whole thing had ‘Silena’ written all over it but at this point Nico’s long given up on denying that he’s stood as a father-figure to this dependent freshman. Dave doesn’t really like talking about his family – the few things he’s told Nico about was that he didn’t have any siblings, and on top of that his foster parents had always been distant, but not on purpose as they were always on business trips. Dave is all smiles and jokes but he’s perceptively missing some of his parts as well, so for some inexplicable reason Nico fills that for him, perhaps out of paternal instinct or whatever. Somehow Dave wandered into his life one day and next thing Nico knows he’s already taken the red-head under his wing and built him the family he never had. Perhaps Nico saw something in Dave that mirrored his own life’s tale of grief that he didn’t want Dave – or anyone, for that matter – to ever experience. So he lets him take whatever comfort and affection he needs, and Nico thinks Bianca would have laughed at him, but in the end approved of his life choices.

 

“ _Daaaad!_ ” Dave calls from the kitchen and Nico looks up from his readings and drops them on the coffee table in frustration. “What is it now? I’m in the middle of something, Dave!” He’s been busy all morning and afternoon, and with Dionysus being even more of an asshole than usual, his mood’s already plummeted to unadulterated shit since 9 am this morning.

“But I can’t find the chickpeas and I told you to get some last week when you got the groceries!”

“Well looks like I forgot, what are you even doing?” Nico gives up on reading extensively up on Freud altogether and strides over to the kitchen. He sees Dave bringing out pots and pans and looks at him questioningly and the red-head stares at him back, disgruntled.

“I was supposed to make a nice dinner when you outright ignored all my and Silena’s calls all day, and then after that you skip out on us at Roma _, just_ before we were going to bring out the cake, and _now_ I can’t even cook you food for your damn birthday.”

There was a pause.

“Language,” Nico admonishes weakly, having the breath knocked out of him. What day was it again? It couldn’t be his birthday already, could it? Mentally, he counts how many months have actually passed since his last one, and just – who the fuck gave the right to time for it pass so quickly in the first place? It was his birthday today, and he hadn’t even realised. But – but there’re people in his life who had. The best friend and the recently-dubbed-son who annoyed the shit out of him alright, but there’s about eight people in his life he cares deeply for, and here’s two of them being the thoughtful devils they were and… _what day was it again?_

When he couldn’t form an adequate reply quick enough, Dave huffs and rolls his eyes, shoving the pan back under the cabinet. “Happy birthday, dad,” he remarks bitterly and stalks away. Nico hears the door close shut before going straight for his phone and punching in speed dial ‘2.’ It takes a total of one ring for Silena to pick up with a –

_“You blithering idiot.”_

“I swear to god S, I _didn’t know_.”

_"Look, Neeks, I know you're all sorts of self-depreciating but we're trying. We, your loved ones, are trying. We're trying to make things better especially since Jason -"_

"Silena," Nico interrupts her warningly. 

 _"No Nico we are_ allowed  _to talk about this, especially since you're not the only one who has the right to be mad. I'm fucking mad, too okay!"_

"Last time I checked you weren't the one who was left behind, Beauregard."

_"I know, and I wasn't the one who had to receive the disgustingly shocking news of my senator-in-training boyfriend's nuptials over the damn news!"_

 Nico should probably explain. But what was there to explain when after months of dormancy and missed calls withering into no calls or contact at all lead to the Sunday afternoon that quite honestly changed his life. 

 Jason often gets featured on the news now as of late. He's still as blond, as beautiful as the day he left and took the sun with him. He's become his father's spokesperson at the age of 24, controversially young to be a budding politician, just like his father. He talks of international affairs and fancies himself more of a businessman than a man of politics, as he's said in one of his interviews. A lot of things have changed, over the course of 7 months. Like how Jason doesn't call anymore or how he's too busy to pick up Nico's own calls; how they're both too engrossed in their own lives to seemingly keep in touch; how Nico fell in love with photography and felt the ache of waiting too often; how Jason up and walked away and one day, Jupiter made an announcement on live television:

_"Nothing is final, but my son has plans of marriage with the daughter of Olympia Enterprises, Nicole Schwartz. We believe it will strengthen bonds between two global companies, Olympia and ourselves. It also doesn't hurt that they do seem quite besotted with one another."_

 And so the heartbreak ensues. ( __ _and it goes like this)_

 

 

           

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think and let a homegirl know if you'd like more x
> 
> ii. The Velveteen Noose  
> iv. Lonely Are the Sufferers  
> v. The Fault In Our Stars  
> vii. Will Grayson, Will Grayson


End file.
